Four by Four
by Kasan Soulblade
Summary: There were heros out of legend, and there were heros made in a legend's shadow. Piecing the bits and bolts together, treding a world choked in twilight, they made do without the filter of destiny to divide myth from hearsay.
1. Prologue: Introducing Shad

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Shad: A flash of Gold

Chapter 1

_Project intro/Authors' note: One thing rarely seen in a fandom is an emphasis on the ordinary. Normally –myself included!- writers use the main characters, the heros and villains that make Zelda a trademark. I wanted to try something a little different, a little ordinary, and see if I could make characters of the regular every day Hyrule into heros. Written to All American Reject's "Move Along"._

"All it takes for evil to be victorious is that good men do nothing." Misc. saying, source: unknown.

It was a particularity of the glasses, that from time to time, with the lighting was just _so_ the world would become a wash of light that seared into the eyes. It was a painful phenomenon, and frequent for a boy who would run here and there searching for legends under the bushes and rocks alongside Hyrule's capital. Still he searched, spending a life time's exuberance in the span of one childhood that was just growing a mite chill from the years that separated it from the present.

"Another sweetheart?"

Broad and buxom, she sidled up to him half leaning against her bar so she could better toss her trademark wink at him. Smiling wide, as she always smiled wide, he looked up at her and couldn't recall her name. With that recognition that he'd forgotten _again_ he smiled weekly and nodded, waving his cup. Such gestures avoided conversation, and the crucial gap he couldn't fill. Oblivious to his thoughts she filled his cup to brimming, not with beer, or wine, but coffee, his favorite poison. Freckles ringed around her grin she leaned against the bench a little more forcefully, her hair –red it seemed in the murky light of the tavern, having never seen her out of it he wasn't too sure of the hue however-

Shivered all about her, a colored halo made mysterious in the gloom as she shook her head.

Considerate to the last she waited until after he took a long sip, smiled his thanks, before breaking the silence.

"Sad, isn't it?"

"Pardon?"

"That."

He turned to where she pointed. An expected play of gesture and reaction came and went, and he was unimpressed by it's conclusion. Pushing up on his glasses, to better ward against the flash of light on glass he dredged a smile that felt as sickly as the last. Some Hylain trooper, shorter than his peers, but beyond that sole feature he was anonymous by the insignia encrusted armor, chain mail, and feature obscuring helmet he wore. He was… "sleeping it off" as his worldlier father would have said. Had Shad bothered to construct the words to form a few cutting sentences he'd have said that the beardless young man was trying to make his chin into an impromptu mop. Cutting words did not seem the fare for today thought, so he just kept his sickly, starving, smile in place and nodded in agreement he didn't feel.

"Yes, it is sad."

Leaning close, green eyes a touch concerned, smile ever in place, she leaned forward to better peck him on the forehead.

"That's what I like about you, Shad. You've never given up on your dreams. Poor sod like him, he's given up so long ago he never realized it."

He waited, tensed for it, expected it…

And it came. Without fail and preamble. He would have cursed, but a gentleman, a scholar never cursed, so he did without profanity, as it wasn't the fare of the day.

"How goes your Oocca hunt?"

"Slowly."

He stirred his cup, smiled weakly into that fond, familiar, nameless, face.

"How's business?"

To that she waved a thick arm to encompass the tavern, it occupants, and herself.

"How does it look, Shad?"

He looked, saw the same old patrons in the same old places, his sick smile acquired an edge of bitter to it.

"Same old, same old."

To that she laughed, no maidenly titter, no juvenile giggle, but a throaty rich chuckling that took some of the sick out of his smile and made it genuine. Reaching across the bar she swatted him, the friendly gesture nearly making him smash into the bar. Still chuckling, she stood, picked up a pitcher of more potent brew and left him to his drink.

He sat alone, for none wanted to sit with him. Unknowing that as he nursed his bitter drink his expression almost as acidic as the brew he sipped. He never added sweetener to his drink, never partook cream, or milk, took pride in the fact that he drank his coffee straight up. Such a powerful drink had to be dolled out in small doses, grimaces were after all, ungentlemanly.

And he was at his core, a gentleman, and a scholar. Such words, such roles, were the foundations of his life.

Late became later, his drink dwindled down to nothing with only the ghost of steam and taste caressing his throat to tell him he'd even drunk anything at all. Ushering out the last swaying customer into the arms of his more sober friends she tidied up the room/ Still at his chair, by the bar, he watched, lingered, as always. When at last she was done, she looked to him, tired but smiling like and unlike before. No teeth were bared this time, just a quiet, grin that curled her lips and took the age from her eyes and made it wisdom of a homely stripe.

"Walk me home?"

She asked, still nameless, always friendly, and he had to wonder if there was a flaw in that. Was the flaw was in him, or her? Thinking of flaws, he lowered his head, contemplated the tankard. It was an odd cup for coffee to be served in, but it's all she had to offer. Quietly he tightened his grip on the handle of the mug, set the brown black skein around the lowest edges to sluggish motion.

"It's not far." She prompted, seeing his hesitance she strived to cross the bridge before indecision felled it. She must want something from him, and she'd use the "walk" to propose whatever she wanted from him. Just like every other "walk", he checked his first impulse which was to sigh.

He was a gentleman, and the she –the lady- _had_ asked.

"Of course, all you have to do is ask."

Which, was, if nothing else, the truth.


	2. Shad: Banter

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Shad: A flash of Gold

Chapter 2

A/N: Mainly banter and witcisms shared between two characters I am really rather fond of.

They threaded from torch light to shadow, rimming the edge of his glasses in reds and oranges. He blinked, annoyed by the stinging and the faint hedache it inspired, but such was the curse of glasses. He could take them off, it was dark enough tht it would hardly make a difference. He smiled at that, the blinkd leading the blind, there was a saying never said with anything but scorn. Her arm was wound about his, in chivilistic motions ages old and made a mockery in the moden world, still she had insisted, and he had indulged.

Such were the rules of sociaty, a century ago.

"You look better when you smile, you should do it more often."

She suggesed, and as they walked he strugged to recall her name. Holding the smile she so liked, he chuckled, it was a quiet sound suitable for a quiet, slip of a man that he was.

"I'll remember that."

"Do try."

Along the way, wending through the poorer -though not poorest, for he'd neve set foot in thsoe abysmal secions. She knew it, so there they never went- sections. Along the way she pointed out odd sights, looked at things from strange angles. And gamely he went along, trying to look and see as she did. Not always sucseeding, but he always tried, and she seemed to appreciate his efforts.

She also told stories, and to those he chuckled from time to time, and in one case rubbed his scalp. Some headahes, he learned, could be inspired by a bad memory.

"It was quite a sight, you fixing those gutters and being purched on those old boxes and the like while you worked."

To that quip he couldn't resist telling the whole of it, for she had only told half of the whole.

"Well, as romanic, (and I mean that term in the literary sense, not the literal) as it seemed to fix something while perched on the roof I left two fators out of the equation."

"And those "factors" of yours would be?"

To that he laughed, for she knew the answer as well as he did. His headache worsened, just a mite, but he braved the pain grinning all the while. Lifting one slende hand, he flicked one digit, that two. He spoke his next words with the confidence a mathmatician would use to declare some abstract assurance that numbers ruled the stars and all between them. Rattling off his folly, he ticked his fingers as if he were counting ruppees on his hand.

"Newton and Murphy."

To that she laughed, and they walked on, passing the gloom choked overhanging with wide smiles, his arms wound about hers with a familiarity of old friendship taking the edge of awkwardness and cliche from the gestures a century out of date and more.

Even as he walked, he still couldn't remember her name, but that no longer bothered him.

"So, you'll do it, then?"

"I'll manage something." He sighed, his smile slipping a bit around the edges. "I've always dreamed of spending a night in a basement of some old coots house fixing thier plumbing."

"It _does_ double as a hospital, from time to time." She pointed out. She smiled while she scolded, her freckles sparkling like tan stars against her pale face.

"It's another artificar's job, my dear. Good intentions of it's local aside. But it's work all the same, and it pays the rent."

He sighed, hadn't meant to, but he sighed all the same. They stoped, and he was released with an idle spin she slipped out of his grip and bound up the stairs of one of the houses. Her own. Shaking his head, Shad chuckled despite his flash of gloom. Grinned in spite of the grim, as it were.

Safely out of reach and framed by the now open door she smiled down at him, the edges of her frame etched in gold and red. Some lamp perhaps, kept always burning to guild her home. He'd have scolded, spoke of fire hazards and the like, but like always, with her, he never could find the heart to rebuke.

"You worry too much about the rent, my dear Shad."

"And you, my dear, have too many worries to be woried about my own." He scolded in turn, setting his glasses so they were more centered. Key accesory in place he tugged his red coat in place, absently buttoning it up as he talked. While warm looking, the light was framing her, not him. Anyways, logically speaking, it was after all light. Illumination wasn't a souce of heat, just a by product of combustion. But, logic aside, that golden glow made him more aware of the night's chill.

"There's a contradiction in that." She noted.

"Elaborate." He dared, living for thier word games. He looked at her, all unknowing that his smile was fierce and his eyes thier most alive.

To his demand she said nothing, did nothing, only looked down on him from her lofty perch of three sairs high. There was saddness in her gaze, the edges of her frame were etched in gold, and her hair he noted was a red-gold then. A lighter hue than his own auburn. He'd have to recall that, store it as one of the peices he knew as "her" and try to remember though he would undoubtly forget.

"What's a nice boy like you doing in a low-born commoner's palce like this." She bantered.

"That's an evasion." Shad accused, looking away from her, to the gloom choked streets that would lead him to home, rent, and other simpler things.

"No, yours was. Mine was a change of topic."

"Sophistry." He sniffed.

"Perhaps."

Silence then, a charged kind of quiet hung between them that niether dared cross.

Then, grudgingly, she broke the moment. "You'll take the job?" She coaxed.

"I always do." He shrugged, "when do I not?"

"Do you need to write down the address?"

"I've got it here." Shad smirked, tapping his skull.

"I'll get a quill and parchment." She said with a chuckle, for having known him for what felt to be a small eternity she knew, as he knew, his shot term retentions was abyssmal at best.

With a determined stride more suited to heros and bygone ages she passed the threshold, diving deeper into her house as if she were wading a monster's den. Considering the destrucive menace that was Louise (furred, feared, a known feet mauler, and feline to boot) "monster's den" was hardly an exageration. As always, she forgot to close the door behind her.

So he was left alone, and once alone he dithered. THe first options was to boldly take the steps in turn, face the feared cat, and enter her home... that or to stand out in the cold.

Tucking his arms over his chest, he decided, as he had so many times before to brave the cold.

It was beter than braving the cat.

XXX

Once home, and alone, with only a lit candle for company he unrolled the parchment. Skimming the laconic directions and sketchy map he sought the latter part of the letter. As always, that's where the heart of the matter lay. The end, rather than the begining.

_"Remeber, fix the plumbing. Homes' owner has no tools, you'll have to bring your own._

_Thanks,_

_Telma._

_Post script: If you forget my name again I will nail my bar's sign to your thick head."_

Unable to resist, lips quirking into a grin, Shad picked up a quill and scrawlled a quick note under her note. A counter, as it were, to Telma's poke on his pride.

"_It would do great for your buisness, having me as walking advertsiement, wouldn't it?"_

He never sent the note, dubbed it too "snarky" and let it lay where it would. Though, with some feelings of foolishness, he played her response in his head. As he went to bed he amused himself by filled the silence of his small home with imaginary banter. He tried to imagine her response, her counter reposite and his own defense. Quietly humming half words, half ditties, he built a whole fictionous conversation with his thoughts and the shadows...

He never sent the letter. A shame that, for in the quiet he'd built up quite the dialogue and it positivly itched to be played out. Not liking the bitter taste in his mouth he went to fetch a galss of water, than retire for what little remained of the night.

He'd have to -delicately of course, such a harsh thing as truth must be dolled out quietly in small sips so it could better be swallowed- tell Telma that her coffee was bad. The shipment must have been flawed. With fragments of '_that_' budding conversation building in his head he went to sleep, it's conclusion stolen by slumber.


	3. Shad: Descent

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Shad: A flash of Gold

Chapter 3

Book Tucked under his arm, its weary picture of an Oocca peaking out from the thick bar that was it's span, Shad braved the market place. Smiling a bright smile he'd practiced many a time in the mirror he braved the mid-day rush. Ignoring jostles and prods, and one particularly rude poke, and a few insults to his back, he strolled amongst the merchandise and merchants, untouched by it all. Where others hurried he was sedate, mulling over each purchase and pinching each green rupee as it was from the King's own coffers. Picking up one set of boots, he ran the flimsy, glossy, material in his hands. The texture was gummy, mushy, and intriguing. Some of his curiosity must have shown, for the merchant jumped in even as Shad's hands were tracing the boot's edge.

"Stuff's made from some pulverized tree mulch made in Kakariko." The well traveled merchant grinned, showing one tooth to be missing with the gesture. "Gorons smush it real fine, than they toast the mush to sweat out the sap."

Shad raised one eyebrow, prompting the merchant to continue without having to say a word.

"Call it 'rubber'." The dark skinned man continued, raking a hand through his sun-belched hair. "Rarer than Kragorock teeth, but mighty useful."

"Useful?" Shad queered delicately.

"Waterproof, figure you'd need it after last time."

_Last time_, he didn't bother to ask, thought the question crowded his throat. He coughed then, brought the bright cheery facade front and center.

"I do try to keep my aquatic adventures to a minimum." Shad wrinkled his nose, as if from remembered distaste. Making his sally with part scientific deduction and with a minimalist touch that invited the other to make all the right conclusions.

To that the dark man laughed long and loud. No reserve that tone, no restraint. The scent of dust tweaked Shad's nostrils, he snorted to banish the memory. Dust and stones, a cemetery, such were the fragments that bore full recognition. Sweat had slicked and darkened his garments, made a black mess of his hair, and slicked his palms so he'd dropped the tools he labored with. He'd been bent over double, working with stone and steel. In remembrance of that memory his shoulders and back itched with recalled sensations a year and a half past. Smile widening, for he recalled at long last, and recalled _during_ rather than _after_, the scrawny man chuckled.

"Ah yes, the water pump and the spectacular... aquatic end to the block." The merchant chortled, stuttering only slightly on the difficult, multisylibic words more suited to a Hylian townsman than some dust town merchant. With his gap grin wide he swatted the scholar in a friendly matter, and with just enough force to almost tumble the book from it's iron grasp. "You were a true Goddess send my boy, let me tell you. Though never thought the Hero of the Three would look so much like a drowned rat!"

"Tell me." Shad straightened slowly, shifting his grip on the book even as he braced for the next friendly back slap that would likely send him to his knees. "Do Goddess-send's get a discount?"

"Course they do!"

As expected the next swat made him stagger, but since he braced he wasn't sprawled., The book however did tumble despite his perpetrations. He swooped to retrieve it, moving quick for the first time all day. Snatching it, snapping it closed, and holding it tight, he smiled weakly. Knowing how it must look, a grown man cuddling a book so tight his hands were pale. To the merchant's curiosity Shad softened the stiffness of his smile and loosened his grip a mite.

"My father's." He lied, than feeling guilty he balance he falsehood with a truth. "It's been with me a long time."

From between his fingers, cast in cloth, details stitched in, the Oocca peeked out it's red eye from between those clasping fingers. The details dulled due to the dust that had been ground in.

XXX

The other items, metal tools, lengths of fabric to wind about his hands, a slew of scarves, all were acquired without memorial incident. Well... all save one.

"Mind where you put your feet!" Agitha shrilled. "You almost squished Mr. Caterpillar."

More to the girl's octave than any fear that he'd "squished" anyone, Shad flinched. Wading through the grass carpet, minding and greeting all the bugs she encountered, she crossed the room. Those brittle, green, eyes told him that he was in no way to set so much as one toe past the _Bugs Welcome_ mat she'd laid at the foot of her door.

Why any would leave such a mat, with such a salutation, _inside_ one's house was beyond Shad. But than growing grass inside's one house was another thing beyond him. With Agitha as such a shining example how insane a seemingly normal girl could be Shad mentally hugged his own normal, boring, lifestyle to his chest. Cradling his sanity to his chest, he mentally held it tight. Though it reeked of the mundane, was seeped in un-ambitious born tranquility, he held on to it despite what Telma would have called such a lifestyle's " tragic flaws" all the more. Agitha was always a welcome reminder as to why he topok the more tranquil, normal path in life. As with all his visits to the bug fanatic's lair Shad resolved to make this quick, he'd endure her oddities to get what he needed than bolt, like always…

"What do you want? And don't say the pleasure of my company. I'm not Telma, I don't fall for the same trick."

Brittle and sharp were those blue eyes. He always marveled at how keen her observations were. Some side effect from training the eyes to spying ants creeping about on the underside of a grass in a field, he supposed. Smiling his sickly smile at her, Shad cut to the chase.

"I need some bugs, fireflies actually. I've got some subterranean work tonight and a candle isn't going to work."

She squinted up at him, considered him from her meager three feet of height. He shuffled his feet, minding that they stayed on the rug despite his acute discomfort. Looking to the window rather than her, her absently radiated how much he wanted "out". She didn't like him, he didn't like her, it was the staple of their relationship, and he was too much a gentleman to bring it out in the open. However, he was also too honest a soul to make pains to hide his distaste.

"I'll take care of them and bring them back as soon as I can." Shad promised, as he always did when he made the request.

She chewed on her lower lip, considered it, idly unaware of a butterfly that fluttered to rest on her blonde-brown hair. Shaking her head, setting the beast to a fluttering flight, she frowned up at him some more.

To that he widened his smile, tried to look charming and failed utterly when pitted against her healthy skepticism. Time trickled on, and for once in a long while -always in this girl's presence it seemed- he was touched with a special type of edginess. The mute frustrations that those in the market had been stricken with, those at the mid point of a line that barely seemed to move. It was a powerful urge, to leave as quickly as possible. With every second that he denied that urge his soul writhed and he squirmed in response.

"It's to help someone else." When the silence and her scrutiny became too much he played his last card with an air of utter desperation, the eyes above his grin were darting, frantic even.

It was the eyes that decided her, that brought the horridly long -at least in Shad's mind- encounter to an end.

"Telma sent you?"

"Roundabout, but yes."

"Then." Picking up one curly lock she set it against his lips, nibbled idly on it while looking him up and down. Her decision made, she nodded. "We have a deal."

Turning on her heel, grass stained hem of her skirt chasing her knees, Agitha the bug lover slipped through grass grown indoors to find just the right bugs. Shad sighed with relief, consoled himself with the same words he'd used all the times before.

_Almost out, just a little longer, it'll be over quick._

His reprieve just didn't come quick enough.

He flinched, feeling the feather light touch of something land on his shoulder. Refusing to look -least he scream- Shad gingerly angled his hand at the whatever it was that had just landed and flicked his finger at it. A buzz of wings and a sharp prick of something pointed piercing his tunic told him that whatever it was had a stinger. Wonderful. The forced grin twisted into an uncharacteristic grimace, and though the wait was almost over he tapped his foot on the mat, wishing he was already gone.

XXX

There were terrors and trials. The old stories, the old legends, were chalk full of them. So much so that they became labeled, given names. A tale's pace was dubbed and segmented; their endings were either "climatic", "cathartic", or "cliche" depending on how the preceding fragments were put together. in short, literature, tall tales, and literacy had become something of a joke. Cobbled together, elements of "classic" literature and modern blended into a hodgepodge quilt work, picked down to the threads by critics, than hastily stitched together to be presented to the masses. It was a sad state, to be sure, but true all the same. With a sigh, Shad flipped through a book detailing the old sketches of Hyrule, it's prominent streets and let it snap closed when the pages ran out. Tucking his book in the oiled satchel slung over his shoulder, the scholar wended through the nearly empty streets.

It was night, late at night, and that was quite deliberate. The snickers and sneers that he was garnering from his costume were few and far between due to his prudence. And the jibs he was getting were bad enough, his dignity wouldn't allow for him to endure a full streets worth of sarcasm. Wrapped in scarves from head to tow, with slick rubber boots sheathing his traditional leather boots underneath, he waddled -and squeaked, for wet rubber did squeak as it shuffled over stone- his way down the final route. He'd started in the cellar, with a elderly man hovering fearfully above and beyond his wet labors, perched on the stair well. Wearing a doctor's black, flowing, robes, the man had seemed raven like, a squint eyes scavenger idly whiling the time while Shad worked. Gritting his teeth despite the aromas, the solidarity of some of the "water", he'd paced back and forth, methodical as always. Bottled fireflies held high to shed their meager illumination, he'd swept his light from cellars ceiling to the submerged base. After satisfying one curiosity -the seepage wasn't born from the upper seams of the room- he knelt in the muck and submerged the bottle to get a better look at the floor.

It was then he found the hole, and one thrust of his hand in the hole later and he found the jag, the steel, and knew the flooding cause.

Rust and wear, and the afternoon's sudden torrential downpour had finished off the efforts that time had started.

From there he'd given a stilted explanation, his reasons and causes laid bare to a man who was pointedly staying downwind.

"So what can I do?" The old medic shrilled.

"Appeal to the crown to get some workman down in the sewers." Shad recommended, shaking his hands and stomping his feet to better get off the filthy water.

"But that could take a week or more." The beak nosed man squealed, wringing his knobby hands and pacing about as if the flooding of his cellar was the end of the Goddess crafted world. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

No, not to something of this scale, or so went his first impulsive dismissal, sounding in the silence of his mind. Fixing a seam would be simplicity, drain the room, slap some plaster down and call it done. That would be the easy route, but the extent of that tear in the piping paralleling the house guaranteed that anything laid down would be washed away. Shad opened his mouth, closed his mouth, those simple truths lingering on his lips. Finally, with a sigh, he smiled, seeing a way out of this tiresome labor at last.

"Tell them to hurry, structural damage might occur if they're lax. That alone would be enough to get the Castle Town Guard to help. Quicker than trying to appeal to the Throne and it's cluster of councilors that cluster about her Highness, Princess Zelda. If I were a wagering man I'd give it a day tops before the lowly patrols send some one down to fix it up.

Somewhat more satisfied, the old man nodded, then squinted past Shad, considered some distant vista shrewdly.

"Could you seal her up? Not from the inside mind, but the outside, so no more water comes in until then?"

And the labor he'd thought he'd evaded found him in force.

"You know, go down into the sewer, and see if it can be patched short term? Telma said you're the best and all, and I figure one of her best could do just 'bout anything."

Shad was trapped, by words and definition. The gentleman had asked, was genuinely in need, and he'd asked. As a fellow gentleman, bound by chivalry, he could not refute the request... Checking a sigh, he widened his smile though he felt sick.

"Of course, sir. A pleasure."

XXX

Thus Shad found himself in the middle of the street, book of streets secreted away, steel plate dragged to the side, contemplating the round hole that lead below into Hyrule's sewers. There was no way to gracefully –or rather honestly- say "I don't know how it came to this". So he didn't bother wasting the breath and vocabulary to find any grace about it. Wrinkling his nose at the vile aromas that were slithering out of the black pit's maw, Shad knelt then swung his squeaking, rubber boots over the edge. Feeling more than seeing the latter, he gingerly eased himself down, twisting about to grip the hand rungs, and stare at the black, slimy, smear that was the wall before him. Teeth clamped lightly on the bottle's narrow top, the taste of cork and much worse filling his mouth, Shad tried not to breathe.

As he went down he was unaware of the visual irony of the moment. Unaware of the humor of the moment, the splash of light and symbology that he indulged. Mind focused on taking care with his descent, he went down, oblivious... Oblivious to how the gold light etched the angles of his face with a precious shean, filled the specticles that hung before his eyes with thier illumination until overflowing. Squinting, trying to see past the glints of gold, Shad blinked back tears at the optical barage stabbed into his eyes and left trails of water to slip down his cheeks.

Shrouded in a halo of his own making, and indifferent to it all, Shad screwed up the whole of his courage. Courage in hand he descided with unnatural candor and profanity to act. T_he hell with the slow, safe, route_. Freeing one hand so he could pull the bottle out of his mouth, he closed the tortured organ with a "snap" and hugged his possessions close with the other hand. Tools secure, he last of all freed his legs with a short hop away from the ladder and into the dark. The law of "what goes up must come down" took hold than, and the remainder of his descent was a blur of gold chasing black.


	4. Shad: The Sewers

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Shad: A flash of Gold

Chapter 4

His nose had declared war, enlisting his writhing stomach it unleashed the restless beast of his midsection, and once unrestrained it flopped and churned. He'd already been sick, twice, as he crept down the hall. Ignoring the muck about his hands -one stumble and unthinking motion to grab a wall had left his begloved hands slick with... something- he pinched at his nose. That slowed the rebelion, or at least the roiling, a bit, but given time and continued exposure to the aromas festering under the sewers he knew he was going to get sick. And soon.

Bottle held above his head, he tilted it this way and that, the angry buzzing within told him that the furious little creatures were hardly settled. All the better, given Shad's situation, and all the worse. The bugs withing the jar were very unlike thier cousins, the Farorian fireflys. The beasties Agitha had gifted him were of a Gerudian breed. Instead of setting off illumination to anounce that they were... ahem... these bugs only glowed when agrivated. They also supped on blood, like mosquitoes. Unlike the smaller, less luminate spieces of bug suckers, Gerudian fireflies were known to fly in swarms. furthermore, they were almost malicious in thier own way. In fact it was scientifically proven that once they supped from one man they _always_ came back to that person. Thier bites drew in moe of thier own kind (that or the droples of blood the bugs drew while supping drew them, the last was unproven and no one was cruel enought to try to prove it with experimentation) until a mini swarm was summoned. At that point they came to feed until the source of thier nourishment was drained dry or the bugs were whiped out.

Which was why, Shad had descided before starting this little misadventure, the bottle he'd picked for holding the little bloodsuckers was nice and thick. It's cork top was about as desne as his own thumb, and the gloves that held the bottle were bulky. Not so much that the blood suckers couldn't smell him, but hopefully enough so that they'd be detured if there were any accidents...

Shaking his head, Shad gritted his teeth and swore to himself that there would _be_ no acidents. No dropping of bottles in the dark for him. Shuffling forward, feeling and seeing every step on the tight walkway that clung to the sewer curving walls, Shad approuched the obviously torn piping. Paralleling the wall had been an unbroken swell, a vein of iron. The base tingued red by the passing of the centuries and those incidential flood that set the water to licking at the arched "roof" of the sewer. Rust had grown, born from the corrosion of iron, and the moist surroundings had caused it to dribble off it's pipe of birth and streak the walls with red brown stripes. Resotely ignoring the inherint symbolism or red running walls -It was a device so overused it had become the staple of the poor man's horror book, and it said far too much about his taste in literature for his comfort that he knew of it- he made his inch by inch, to his goal. Making sure every motion was both felt and seen by watching his feet, minding the pools of slime and the like, the scholar gained ground and surity that this was the most vile task Telma had every put him up to.

Next time, chivilry or no, he'd say no. No, I will not risk my neck fixing some old coots plumbing. No I will not spend a day and a half imursed in dust, drowning in my own sweat to mend the plumbing out in the middle of no-where at your request. And no, Ms. Telma, I am not available for your "lets save Hyrule one errand at a time" campaign!

Such went his litiny, as the red tingued tear drew closer and closer, then all at once, the red was no longer red. There wasn't any other way to describe it, what was red turned black so quick and sure that it must have happened while he was blinking. Save he hadn't blnked. He recoiled, wide eyes, eyes _burning_ because_ he hand't blinked _at the impossibility before him. Each bit acted indipendent. His eyes were locked, his mind frozen, his mouth unhinging so it hung slack. In shock, the prelude to horror, he stared at the red that was red no more. It was black, gloom black, and... writhing. The motion was that almost alive flickure that the dark took when it was parting before the coming of a tourch. Not the shocked swift withdrawl that came abou the heart of illuminaton... rather it was the shuddering withdrawl about the illuminations edge. That... dancing on the rim of sight took when the fires wavered, that creeping, menacing, edge the withdrawing black partook, as if it's whole was mutely, menacing, chanting "...I'll be back, just give me one chance, and I'll be back... I'll be back..."

Shaking his head, taking his glasses off then popping them back, Shad lifted his makeshift light and stared a the pipe that was red again.

"A...a trick of the light." Shad assured himself, tone wavering, he wore a nervious smile and it was all a-shiver as his composure danced on that razor edge taht preluded a total crumbling. "Nothing more... Just a trick of my eyes. I'm such a fool." He chuckled, then muffled the sound. the sound was precarious as his state. Letting the light drop he hugged himself, hodling the light tight. "Just a trick of the eyes, clearly the wall... and the piping undernight it was a vitum of advanced cerrosion. Storms and iron, a poor mix if any. Nothing more sinister than that." He assured himself, his frame all a-shiver now.

He tightened his grip, muffling the light somewhat as he held it fast and hard.

_Call it logic, call it concious, but something indignant and scared roused from within. Riled, it railed at his excuses and spoke with a voice of authority that was nothing like his father's but held a ghost of him despite the differences. "That one span?" It snapped "All of five feet? Nature just took a distaste at that span, hmm... And it went so far as to touch nothing else, nothing at all? There is purpouse here, intent told by the selectiveness of the destruction. And here you are, in the dark, before the damage, content to say "just nature and time, tis all." And "la dee da, la ta-ta" you'll merry well go to the guard, nevermind that it changes hues on you? Is that corrosion? That change of color? Is it-_

"Shut up!" Shad screamed, to the dark, to the voice, his own tones shattered and shrill. There came a cumbling, from inside, a sick crack as the words or his life, shuddered and broke from the inside to let loose a rush of noxious fear. "Shut up, shut up, shutup shutupshuup! Leave me alone damn you! Leave me _my life_!"

Silence then, save the drip drip or slime falling into water perhaps. He shook, held the light tight, and before that gash, he knelt. For a long time he stood, shaking, as he savored the quiet. Or tried, the smell and sickness hung about him. He stood, imursed in filth, satraied rom teh insdie out. Closing his eyes, he groaned, and got sick. On the heels of his illness came coherence, and recognition. Sound, soft but drawing closer, came from above.

_clicity click_

Eyes wide, drawn up he raised his hand up, and to that bared light the dark withdrew, sullen and thick.

And the sound stopped, it stopped as if 'waring the light.

"Go away." Shad whispered to the black above, ahead, tears steeling the edge from his sight,

_"Leave me my life..."_ Purred the dark, it's tone sticky sweet, cloyingly soft. He gasped at the thing above, at the voice of his father that was not. Mired in rot the dark spoke with the breath of the sewers and gasp became gag_. "How much would you like, Master Scholar? A day, two, a week?"_

It moved, the whole gloom above moved. Not with limbs, or effort as the living must, but a effortless soundless glide deprived of wings and rustling or feathers. Defing the light, it lunged, wihout claws it clawed, scrabbled, across the cobbles, braving than breaking the edge of illumination it swelled than surged. And in it's blackness, under the span featureless, amorphs frame, there were edges. Edges of fangs, of claws, of hooks, and barbs, and cruel steel swords. All thsoe edges reached, and scrapped, spitting than swallowing the sparks thier scraping summoned.

With a shrill, breathless, scream, Shad forgot honor and chivilry. The twin steps the anchients believed lead to Courage and Goddliness, he sepped down those two steps quick and sure, than took to the road ahead. Forgeting pomises, Shad forsook cuation, and ran, his rubber sheathed heals squeaking amd slipping against the slick stones. thrusting the bottle and it's light like it was Evil's Bane itself, Shad scrambled for the gate, the gate that mirrored the road and path ways above. At the nearest intersection there would be a gate that ran from the sewers slimmy top to it's foul rivered bottem. There, with a barrier of sure, thick, steel he would be safe. Cut off from the thing above.

Before he knew it, before he could comprehend it, he was there. Oblivious to the black bars the shadow that made a bracket of bars that licked the wall behind the steel frame, Shad shoved at the partialy open door, forcing it to fullness. The steel hard, his satey between there and it and the world above gave a few inches before clanging at the insubstanual shadow bars that crossed the path in the air behind thier true counterparts. It clanged, than swung the other way, swinging shut. Locked in the dark, by the dark, Shad almost screamed. This wasn't happening, his couldn't be, it was insane, inane!

Whatever it was though, it was real. Gritting his teeth he shoved at the bars again. This time prepared, he held them, braced when they clanged against the shade. A few inches was gained for his effort, not much slack, but it must be enough. Sucking in a deep breath Shad puled his meager gut close and squrimed and shoved. Above, outside of the bottle's light here came a clatter, the whole steel gate shook from top to bottem from the force of impact.

Clickity tick... From top to bottem it would descent, smoothering the light and the claws, the mouthless jaws would descent as well... With a scream he cleared the opening and whirled on his heel slamming the gate behind him. Shade that had stoped steel could not stop Shad, it seemed. Still twisting on the force of his las twirl Shad took to his heels again, turned and staggered on. Not wanting to see what matter of hand would force the door, not willing to spy what matter of demon that lived under the cowl of dark and claws.

_"Come back Shad."_ Breathed the dark, the chink a link of claw on steel almost musical, like bells_. "Oh do **come back!**"_ The dark screamed, using Telma's voice then. As if it held the whole of thier conversations in it's hands like a script, it flipped through endearments, using a mockery of Telma's voice to shrill through the slime choked dark_. "Come stay a while, child. My dear, sweatheart, whatever the rush? We've much to talk about! A cup, have two, take **three** lovely! **Take three**!"_

Gripping the latter that had lead down he scrambled up, up and out. Oh dearest Nayru, please be out! As he ascended the thing in the dark spoke a final time. The dark spoke in a slick sick whisper at his heels, each word licking at his retreating toes, growing softer as he went away_._

_"I killed her you know."_ It confided quietly_. "I'll kill you too."_ It assured_. "There's no place in this world for heros. Only fools with swords and dreams. Swords and dreams, a Wolfos' dream. Oh how they drink. And they drink, dearest Shad, they drink on red, and they drink deep, and..."_

_"_She's not dead, damn you, she's not dead!" Screaming, weeping, he threw the light into the dark. With a screech the black receded at the attack and the glass shattered sounding far too loud, sounding far too heavy.

Like a breaking heart.

_"Not dead."_ Half in half out he slumped, then rolled out. not caring about the filth, he found fear fast retreating as something heavier took it's place and choked him. "_Not dead, damn your eyes."_ Shad choked, curling away from the dark mouth of the open sewer. Ringed round by red, by gold of fires light held high above. Gold licked at silver, then coherence fell away and angles became lost in a blur, a haze, as his glasses fell off his nose and skipped against the ground.

_"_Sir?" The guard quiered, poking the curled man befoe him with a tentative boot. "Are you alright?"

Lifting blind eyes, Shad stared at the blur of silver and steel that was vaugly man shaped.

"What in Goddess's name are you doing man!" The scholar screamed. "Close it, close it, there's a monster down there!"

To that the soldier laughed, steel cink-a-linking as the man within it chortled with his all. Monster? No such thing! The sound assured and dismissed in equal doses. So did the sound, so did the man. Steping around Shad the soldier thrust his torch past the rim of the hole, only an inch or so -minding the muck and all- and looking down he spied nothing more sinister than a pair of beady rat's eyes glaring up at the intrusion.

"Nothing there!" The man assured, then seeing the saftey hazard he did close the sewer by settign the thick steel plate over the throat of the dark. "And done!" Still chuckling the man whiped his gauntled hands on the sides of his chain mail as a normal man might whipe his hands on his trousers after some mighty labor. "You need a guild to walk you home, you sure don't seem alright. What in the Three's name were you doing down there..."

"My name is Shad." the sholar choked, shaking still. With tentative hands he groaped in the dark, found his glasses and put them on. The world snapped into focus and he sat, cradling his head in quaking hands. "I was... fixing... trying to fix... cellar, there's a hole in the pipes down there, a tear." Looking up, he dared a smile up at his present companion. Nameles, faceless, for the fetures were stolen by embalm and symbol all cast in silver and steel. "Guess... something gave me a scare..."

"Guess so." The guard chirped. Relief obvious in that he wasn't dealing with a complete crazy.

"Might want to nail that down." Shad suggested, struggling to his feet, his aroma causing the guard to not offer a hand. Ignoring the incredious look the armored man cast his way, the half protest "How can anyone go down to fix things if it's nailed?" Shad looked by the torches light. Spying a signpost declairing this Kakiro Street, he nodded. Two blocks to Telma's. He'd walk it, no matter the smell, the squeak of his boots, or the shake to his step.

He'd walk it.

"Sir?" From a world away the guard tried tentativly to call the scrawny man back. "Sir, where are you going?"

Oblivious to the man's concerns Shad put more speed to his step, never mind the shake, the wide burning to his eyes.

"She's not dead." Shad whimpered. "And I'll prove it."

An odd sound teased his ears. A flutter of fabric. Curious he paused, packs were open, waterprooved satchel had come undone while he was running. No waning o drag half the muck of the sewers into Telma's tavern he paused, turned it upside down and didn't have a care for how tools and parchment poured out on the street. His eyes were locked on the first thing that fell. Staring at the dead things glossy black hide Shad shivered, wanted to scream, but found he could not. All his screams were used up for the night it seemed, were taking some time off for a while. So, soundelss, he stared, the tink-a-clink of steel shoed boots retreatign told him there would be no saviors, no knights to step in and take this over. Looking at the thing taht was a mad melding between tar and a rat, jellyfish and rodent. Shad scooped it up. It was dead, still and dead and liquid feeling despite the stiffness that rigerous mortis had taken onto it's little features.

And it was smiling, up at him, fangs all a bare it was smiling and unrevokably dead.

Snatching it, he shoved the beast into his packs and to the Three's darkest hells about the shake to his steps, he ran to Telma's.


	5. Prologue part2: Introducing Rustl

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Rustl: Nature of Courage

Chapter 1

He half woke, the warmth at his side, _her_ warmth, calmed him enough so that he slid back into slumber. Still, though half asleep he trembled, lips forming one tortured word that had been the crux of his nightmares. Those of the waking and dreaming breed.

"...M...Monsters..."

_Monsters; one word, taboo. You must never speak of them outright nor dwell upon them in your mind. Else you call them in, and with beasts of dark come vile burdens. So spoke the goddess. So abjure from all thoughts of wickedness, purge the taunted from your presence, and speak not of monsters. Else they hear and come seeking you..._

So spoke the goddesses, the elders, and the wise.

"Not here my love, no more." Slender hands clasped over his wrist. In that impossible land between waking and dreams he hovered. Her touch called him back, but still he dithered between the boundaries. Beyond pain for the moment, he indulged in instinct. Instinct caused him to close his hand, and for the motion he was rewarded. From knuckle almost to nail -where the skin had been striped by some horrid scraping ride she could only imagine, the image enforced by the scare on the very earth itself that had lead the searches to him those days long ago- settled hot bars of pain. He gasped, the agony waking him in full, forcing him to step out of that twilight line between waking and sleeping. Nothing new there, he'd woken such so many times before she'd lost count. Still, unlike the others he did not turn back, did not turn back to dreams to better ward the pains. One eye opened, opened wide and sure. With purpose it sought her face, found it and stilled, and there was something of a horrid wonder to his face. Perhaps he wondered why he could only see half as well. She could have answered, spoken of the other eye, told him it was bound in rust stained swaths of bandages.

She did neither, only met his gaze for the longest of times.

"Uli..."

"Here."

Her touch shifted, settled so that her hand was under his. Comforted by the caress he smiled. To that promising, Goddess sent sign she tried to smile back. Though tears burned behind her eyes she blinked, willing herself not to break. Not now, he was here, and for now that would have to be enough. To her brave front (flawed only by the glint of unshed tears about her eyes) Rustl spread his fingers wide, slipped his red raw digits through the spaced provided by her own.

Offered her what poor comfort he could.

"Where else would I be, my love, if not here, with you." Uli assured.

One breath, another, both released with ever so soft hisses of pain. She blinked back tears, willing herself not to cry. Confident he hadn't seen. he was ill, hurt, certainly he could not see so well just yet, not with only one eye working in full. This was the first time he'd been awake, awake enough to speak, awake enough to understand. She'd not spoil it for him by crying like a hurt child.

"...Colin..."

"No one knows where..." Her voice broke and determination aside she shook and her eyes burned, her vision blurred. "... where _any_ of the children are, dearest..."

_Monsters..._

The sentence hung between them, uncompleted, a thread of ice for both their spines. A shattered gate, hoof prints (cloven and crescent... a horses... and _something else) _a trail of gashes on the banks of the sacred spring itself. It took no stretch of the imagination to imagine that horrors had come, that he'd seen them. His eyes, his face, whatever he'd seen had taken great offence at his seeing. Why else had they struck at his eyes? She shivered for that thought, and he tightened his hold for all he was worth. It must have been all the more awful for him for he _had_ seen, his state bespoke that the faces behind their terror were awful beyond words. That must be true. And the minds behind the faces, the warped, craven souls... must be vile beyond all comprehension. And so filled with their evil they inflicted horrors on those who'd been where they should not be, spying on what should not be seen.

Her Rustl's state made such speculations a horrid, bloody truth, at least in her eyes. And it was the only truth for her, for them. Swallowing, she banished such thoughts from her mind, focusing on his question for a time.

"Bo's looking." Her smile was so taunt it shivered, nearly snapping from the force she summoned to hold it in place. "The mayor's a reliable man, a good man," she was babbling, knew it, inane statements known by all, redundancy at it's supreme, still she said them, she'd say anything to bring hope to his horror filled eyes. "He'll find them, never fear."

To her assurance he sighed, eyes sliding shut, grip turning flaccid. From grasp to caress, from caress to limp weight, his strength fled in stages. It was only when the last of his strength left his hand that she slipped her own free. He was asleep, and he must sleep to heal all the quicker.

Closing her own eyes, holding the hand he'd held tight, Uli heard Fado as she'd heard him on that day. Boyish face pale, voice all a shiver, his cries had roused the whole sleepy town. Waking them all to the first part of this living nightmare.

"_Monsters in the wood, 'ware!"_


	6. Rustl: WIth both eyes

Four by four: Prologue:

Glimpses on the Edge of Sight

Rustl: Nature of Courage

Chapter 2

With both eyes....

_To my readers,_

_I've been having a mess of tecnical issues with the site. When I use a comptuer to xfer the document from word to the site if double ups the text (printing one copy of the chapter right after the other). Another issue I'm having is it;s not saving my editing form time to time. Hence, one or the reason's I've been slow to update. Another, non technical, it trying to make some sort of relationship between Rustl and Uli that feels... non cliched. I like to meake each couple's dynamics and each characters dynamics different. It's hard after you've written so many of them. Hopefully you all like my spin on them both._

_Kasan Soulblade_

A glint of gold caught the edge of the water. Some would have thought it the reflection of the sun on the water, after all the sun was shining above the pool. But she knew, as did all who lived here, that the gold came from the water itself. Allusive, evasive. It resented being caught in ladle and bucket and would skirt away without a ripple despite the most determined person's efforts to catch and cage it. Some said to catch it would be hold eternal youth, eternal good health, or perhaps fortune. Many youths, filled with those tales and the dreams that road upon them would linger at the edge trying to catch that light, and thought often seen it was never caught. Smiling at that glint of gold, a familiar greeting between the two of them, she wasted no time chasing gold out of the blue that day. Bending as much as her condition would permit, Uli scooped water from the forest pool with a long handled ladle. One scoop, two, three... Patiently she filled the bucket about halfway, then content with her catch, she began the long ponderous waddle back home.

And perhaps, perversely, because she wasn't trying to catch it that time, the sentience in the water allowed a glimmer of itself to be carried along in the bucket.

Not looking, Uli never noticed that she carried an edge of gold within the water.

XXX

"Link was here." Uli informed him. His eyes were open, weary, but open, and if not wide and fully coherent that was easily forgivable considering his trials. Patiently she labored, seeping his fresh bandages in ointment and the spring's water she drew out one saturated length of tan. Confident the medicines were setting she set it over the bucket's edge, allowing the excess to dribble off. "He was here, and well." She answered, meeting his gaze and sparing him the effort of asking the obvious. "He's gone looking for the children."

His eyes, darkened, with pain, regret, she didn't know -because he didn't say. Oddly he flinched at her words. Wincing, as if discovering some new wound, some new hurt, he closed his eyes, retreated into himself for a while. Quietly Uli worked, dipping each bandage, letting it drip into the bucket, then when the worst had run off setting it by the fire to warm a little. For a while she dithered, not wanting too, but knowing she must wake him. With a little sigh, she gave in to necessity, and bit her lip as well.

"Love?"

His eyes slipped open, curious despite the pain. Then, seeing the bandages, now somewhat dry and ready to be set in place, he nodded his understanding. With a whimper and croak he forced himself to sit up, gripping the wall behind him for support as he hesitantly rose. Still nipping her lips, refusing to give in to the burning behind her eyes, Uli picked up the first of the bandages and moved to winding it in place. He shuddered at her touched, coughed sharply once, when he changed the fabric that was wound about his ribs. All to keep from screaming, she was sure. So pale, her knight... Odin's knight they'd called him, for all of his adult life, was so pale and broken he might shatter at the barest pressure.... So she was gentle, gentle and quick, and she spoke to him of light matters to keep his mind from the pain. As quickly could be, they were done, she eased him low and held his relatively whole hand lightly.

No man should be expected to fight against monsters. No man should fight them, nor should he be expected to fight them alone.

_"Illness of this caliber, pain of this kind, should never be bourn alone." Bo had murmured, staring down at rustle, aged face grave as he watched the others gingerly bring Rustl home. He was stretched upon a sheet, the tan fabric fast turning red despite the tenderness of its bearers._

_"He won't be alone." Uli assured Bo. "I'll be here."_

Simple words, an easy, heartfelt sentiment. But the truth -shameful as it was- was that it was hard, a hard and bitter work. Still holding his hand in hers she sighed, a sound he mimed as he slipped into slumber. Falling a bit as he'd reclined, he'd settled his head so that his blonde hair fell over her leg. She could move, wound need to eventually, but by setting himself so she'd wake him when she did. And, despite how insane it seemed, she suspected that his "accidental" and "incontinent" placing of his head was quite intentional.

He was always trying to protect her, had always been trying since the first they'd met.

"You shouldn't be." She whispered, lifting his hand up so she could murmur her rebuke into it then gentle kiss his knuckles. "You don't need to protect me. You just need to get better, that's all."

To her words, or perhaps her tone, he half woke. He came to the world of the waking long enough to open his eyes half way and smile at her. Then, with a soft sigh, he slipped back into slumber.

To spite the pain his smile remained as he slept. For how long, she was unsure. The world seemed to have blurred between around the edges, and time was a lost thing unlikely, to be found by one woman no matter how determined. Nights were longer, the shadows cast by mere shade darker, more ominous these days.

Cradling his hand, Uli cried.

XXX

Sitting up, attentive and restless, Rustl looked at Bo while Bo pointedly looked everywhere else. Everywhere that allowed him to remain but avoided meeting Rustl's un-bandaged eye. He was healing, blessedly fast thanks to the grace of the Goddesses it seemed, but as he healed his mind roved beyond the walls of his home seeking impossible things. He wanted answers, answers to questions they didn't know, that he didn't speak. Patiently, quiet as always; Uli hovered about him, around him. Tending his needs and asking him to rest when he seemed to agitated. This time, her request went ignored, as Bo, sitting on the couple's sole chair squirmed a bit. Rustl's green eyes were intent, clear, and demanding.

"It's down?" the swordsman rasped, pale face pallid as that fact sunk in sure and quick.

"Yes, that... wall whatever you want to call it... it's gone now." Bo conceded.

"And you went outside, and looked beyond that wall." Rustl pressed, gently shooing off his wife's hand as she set it on his shoulder. She wanted him to rest, they all wanted him to rest. Unlike the other townsfolk who might be thinking "what if he isn't better when something else comes?" Uli's efforts were more humane. Her mute request was rooted in concern for him. Perhaps that was why he listened to her advise and no one else's.

More than aware of the subtle play between husband and wife, and more than a little concerned by the worn man's dogged indifference to his health, Bo wanted to press on but didn't quite dare. He wanted to get this over and done with so Uli could talk Rustl into getting some more sleep. The Mayor knew he was an agitation. A specter from the outside that had no place in here while Rustl so obviously craved to be out, to be looking, and was in such a state that he should do neither. Not that the stubborn young man wouldn't try.

He'd try and fail, and they'd find him again and bring him back again. It had happened once before. The night when the sword had gone missing, when some foul thief had slipped into the village and stolen the blade and shield meant for the royal family.

"What news?" Rustl hissed as he tried to sit up. Another shooing motion on his end made Uli stop trying to hold him back. With a resigned sigh she slipped a hand about him, and much to Bo's shock went about helping up! Opening his mouth, meaning to say _something the _two flat glares that went his way told him it was best to say nothing at all.

So, with the wisdom that had allowed him to ascend to Mayorship, Bo remained silent, at least on matters that he wanted to speak of.

"It's where the tracks of those... things went. Stopped right up against that bit of dark we couldn't cross. Now that the dark's gone and we can pass I went, me and Fado went to take a look, follow the tracks."

"And?" Rustl pressed, leaning forward and stifling a gasp of pain for the motion.

"Well... the tracks go a good ways ahead, there clear, hasn't been no rain or anything..." The village mayor hedged, clearly not wanting to give the last tidbit of information unless he had to.

Considering their circumstance... considering how the last "wall" an unassailable barrier of shade that had cut Ordon from the world had caused such a panic it didn't take Rustl much effort to figure why Bo was hesitating so. Swallowing, the swordsman tasted something bitter and thick, helplessness and fear, a fast becoming familiar elixir. More bitter than a red jell, and much more aplenty these days.

"There's.... another..."

Bo nodded, wrinkled face solemn as he refrained from saying the obvious aloud. Best not to speak it. Like with monsters, magic had a way of becoming worse than it was if you talked about it.

_Just like monsters..._

He winced at the thought, winced and pointedly did not look at Rustl. Pulling at his gray mustache, the Mayor nodded to Uli.

"I... I've no more news...And what I've given is hardly good." Bo admitted with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I should be off."

Relief flooded the young woman's face, she managed something like a smile. Then, mouthing the formality, as she would have when everything was all right, Uli offered a quiet. "Thank you for coming by." And though it wasn't, he met formality with the expected "A pleasure."

And there it hung, between the three of them. In that terse silence Bo stood, moved to leave.

"How far?"

Turning, almost to the door, Bo half turned, surprised that though the young man was little more than a bandage cloaked ruin, Rustl's voice could sound so... strong.

"You should rest-" Bo began.

"Dearest..." Uli whispered, a breath or rebuke to the sound.

"How far?" Rustl rasped, facade of strength folding as the pain came back.

"Not far enough to be useful." Bo muttered. "We can _almost _see Kakariko, can _almost_ see Hyrule Town... But seeing isn't getting to."

"Have you even tried?" Rustl grunted.

Bitterness made the injured man's tone a whip, and the blow fell over an area run ragged with the omnipresent cycle of doubt and fear. Stiffening his back, as if he'd been struck, Bo turned fully then. Turned and glared, pale face made sullen and swollen looking as it darkened to a hot red.

"We've tried, as much we've dared. We've spent hours pounding away on it with what swords we've got! You think we've done nothing! That you're the only one..." Sputtering, swinging his arms about, Bo stormed to the door, pulled it open. On the threshold he stopped, though he shook with rage, he managed to stop. "Look here, young man! We've done what we can and if it's not good enough. Not good enough to bring back your young one or my Llia! You're not the only one who's missing the children, your child! Remember that!"

The door roared shut.

"Uli.." He closed his eyes on sudden tears. Uttering her name, Rustl turned to his wife, not needing to see, knowing that she was there. Her presence was a comfort, and he leaned against her wearily. Torn and worn, and utterly spent, but _needing_... "Please... you have to go after him... to ask..."

She held him, and hushed him, and said without saying that she'd do no such thing.

"I need to see." He whispered brokenly.

"You will in time." Leaning forward, holding him close, she kissed the top of his head, as if he were the youngest of children with a nightmare born scare. "It just needs to heal. You need to heal. And when you're better you'll see, with both eyes."

Reaching up, with questing fingers, he traced the bandage that covered almost half of his face. That covered the eye that had been slashed at by a monster wielding a bit of night like a normal man would hold a sword. For seeing they'd attempted to take his eyes, to prevent him from seeking.

For all the stories said that one who sees must seek, such is the way of the Goddesses.

A quick turn and twist as he fell had spared both his eyes from being slashed out, bad luck had made the blow follow him down, had stolen the sight from one eye...

"I hardly notice that these days...." He murmured.

"What was that?" Uli murmured, stroking his head.

"I..." A chuckle, choked and high pitched about the edges, but it was a passable sound of mirth. "I'd like to go out tomorrow." Feeling her tense, he forced a smile. "Just to the porch, if you're of mind." Rustl assured his Uli. "Just the two of us, to take a quick look at the world."

"It's hardly changed so much that you should rush." Uli scolding were as light as her touch, his smile firmed up a bit about the edges. Nestling close as his wounds and her condition would allow, he mulled over his options. Decision made, he acted oblivious to her rebuke. He hummed and hawed throughout the quiet, as if his next words would decide the whole fate of Hyrule or something. Finally, still smiling, he tried his luck.

"Maybe to the bank?"

She waited, patient and silent, knowing him far too well to fold so early in the game.

"Maybe, just maybe...." He hedged, sounding wistful. "All the way to the pier out front?"

By tone alone he made that short walk sound epic. Almost legendary. A short stroll became, by enunciation alone, akin to distance as one would expect a Hero to trod. Like the tale of a Hero who would stride from the peak of Death Mountain in the morning all so he could swim in the sacred waters of Zora's Domain that night.

"With fishing rod firmly in hand?" She asked mildly.

"Maybe."

"Rustl!" Uli managed to put enough disappointment into her tone, somehow managing to fill those two syllables with that delicate blend of frustration, exasperation, and good humor, that he had to laugh.

Or rather he tried, and winced as his wounds hurt all over again.

Then, so quick he surprised himself, the words slipped out. "How I love you, my Uli."

And to that, she laughed and cried all at once, a delightful little sound. "I love you too."

"Will everything be alright again?" He sighed, holding her as tight as he could, as tenderly as he dared.

"Of course. The Goddesses will see us to the other side." Firm, unshakable, she assured him. "I've no doubts. And you, my husband, I won't see you lose faith any more than I can stand to see you in pain. We'll get this better, first you, than this wall business. One step at a time is all."

_And I have plenty, doubts and fears... more than enough for us both and I dare not say a word._

"You haven't seen my fishing rod, have you?" He said instead.

"You said _tomorrow_." Uli reminded him, a small poke on his uninjured side was all the rebuke he needed.

"So I did."

"So you did."

And for them, the matter was closed, said, and done. Content with that for the time being, willing to _need_ and _see_ some other time, Rustle rested in his wife's arms. The held each other, for how long, he wasn't sure. For time was fickle these days, with the nights far too long and light far too scarce. Even though bed bound, he knew that much at least. Time had broken it's bounds, and the state of the sky was ever in flux. But, regardless of the sky, the sun, and stars, he held his wife, and long or short, whatever it might have been it was long enough.

And that's all that mattered.


	7. Rusl: untitled

Four by Four

Rusl: Nature of Courage

_To my readers,_

_Sorry about the wait, had some trouble getting to a comp. Been sick for almost two weeks that's why there's been no updates. I'm a mite hurt no one told me I was spelling Rusl's name wrong for two whole chapters. I found the right spelling yesterday, so I edited this chapter up to accommodate it. Pleasant reading and I'll have the next chapter up in a few days._

She worried, of course, not as others would, with insistent hovering and nagging, but she worries all the same. Eye closed (the one not bound, neither feel it the right time or place to remove those bandages just yet) face placid, fishing rod held in scrapped and scarring hands, he Rusl seemed more content to watch the water with close eye than to actually catch some fish. Furthermore, precarious and perhaps a mite perilous considering his present frailty, was how he say.

Leaning back, against nothing as if it were study stone, whole frame tilted so that he could observe the front of the village when his eye opened…

Hand placed on the swell of her belly, Uli idly ran her fingers over the front of her blouse. Smoothing out non-existent wrinkles for a time from the front of her blouse, nipping her lips for a while as well, she considered him and worried. Only when she was sure of her composure did she make her stately way down the worn path. Grass tickles her bare toes, so tickled and teased; she approached, stopping just short of the pier. Her shadow brushing him was al it took, his eye opened, slowly, as if he were waking from some dream.

Save the dreaming were generally in some sort of repose, and his back was so still (had been so stiff) as to rival a sword blade.

"Yes Love?" He turned, gingerly, but not with as much pain as a few days ago. No hisses or gasps slipped past his lips to color the words with small agonies. To that she smiled, and in her heart of hearts thanked the Three for that small blessing.

"Any luck?"

Besides him, conspicuously missing considering all the other times she'd come up to him (and her son, her little boy, both would crowd the pier, her baby Colin and her Rusl, taking up the whole of a span meant for four just between the two of them) and it was there. Uli noted the tackle box's absence, and though her gaze lingered where it should have been, she didn't comment. A few quick glances about affirmed what she'd expected, there was more than one absence. There was no gutting knife winking in the sun light at his site, no bucket to hold what was caught, no bottle containing bai…

"None." He confirmed what she'd already knew, stating the obvious with a shrug.

"Want company?" She offered.

To that he smiled, moved as much as he could and keep the village gate firmly in sight. Taking what he offered, sliding her arm about him, (to her touch he accepted, leaning against the offered support too soft to be a sigh) the fished for a while. Without bait, however, nothing so much as nipped the hook.

Only when their shadows stretched into a budding gloom and the trickling water reflected in ripple shattered fragments the wild colors precluding to sun set did she stand. For a moment he seemed content o sit, to continue his vigil over the gate alone. The moment came, went, and with a somewhat guilty glance at her spurred him to rise. Her arm about his shoulder, he draped his own likewise. Wordlessly the ascended together, three steps later they were before the threshold.

A turn of the knob later, and they hesitated as one. Reaching into the gloom of their lightless house, finding by touch alone a thick length of wax on a small shelf all without leaving the portal, Rustle turned to her, expectant. To hat she checked he apron pocket… and failed to procure the small firestater.

"Oh…" Face coloring, glad the encroaching night hid her face, Uli laughed. "Oh dear…"

Knowing what that statement meant, Rusl simply set the candle down without comment.

"I... forgot again..."

Stiffening, as realization hit, and swearing softly at the pain the motion inspired, Rusl let out a bitter chuckle as the pain passed. Before she could ask him what was so funny, or scold him for taking Nayru's name in vain, he explained.

"The fishing rod."

"Opps..."

It hung between them the building dark at their back as the sun fled and the dark that filled every nook and cranny of their home. Familiar made menacing by lack of light Uli tried to reassure herself. It was just one room, four walls, a few rugs here and odd furnishing there... But he was as blind as a Keese in any kind of dark, and she was no better, and only Nayru knew where the smell bit of flint and strike stone was in that familiar gloom.

"We could go to Bo, or Fado, or..." She murmured hopefully. "Or anyone in Ordon to get a bit of fire, or a torch, or just to stay the nigh-"

"nonsense." sounding so sure he seemed healthy, Rusl bent, plucked their welcome mat from the floor, and turned to the gathering dark. "We've both slept out of doors before, there's not a breath of rain to the air, a cloud in the sky, or any sign of bad weather about."

Draping the throw rug over his shoulder rustle ended all discussion on the topic by firmly closing the door before the, Curious, bit unsettling truth be told, was that once the door was closed he locked it. Shaking the rug out firmly, with only a faint wince of pain for his efforts, he took her hand and lead them a bit away to where the grass was softest. Between the two of them, with the fading light to guild them, they set first fabric, then themselves to the ground.

Looking up, his hand in hers, she found he was right. To that she smiled, amused. The last time he'd stated there "wasn't a cloud in the sky" they'd been drenched to the bone by the building storm front.

"There isn't a cloud in the sky." she marveled, unable to help herself.

"Of course not." Rusl snorted, sounding a bit... hurt.

To that she laughed, gave his fingers an apologetic squeeze. She was sure he smiled, his understanding, per the usual, but she did not turn to see that familiar sight. Gripped by something that left her feeling young and a bit giddiness Uli watched the sky, eagerly waiting for the coming of the night's first star. When at last it came, a spark of white against the black, she smiled to see it.

"Make a wish."

Twining his fingers amongst hers, Rusl's touch assured her he had.

XXX

Come morning the whole of Ordon woke to a nasty surprise. Half snoozing, Fado shuffled and smacked his lips together, images of goat cheese Ordon made omelets dancing in his head. Frying pan in one hand, slab of cheddar in the other and eggs tucked against his body by holding one arm tight (but not too tight) Fado approached the fire. Last night had been warm, so much so that after dinner of toast and warm milk he'd damped the flames so he wouldn't roast. Now, with the task of getting a fresh blaze going to make breakfast, Fado had to wonder about last night's wisdom.

consoling himself as he kicked aside the grate, with a bit of truth, Fado admitted that even if he'd built up the flames till he toasted the constant maintenance with feeding the fire all night would have grown dull. He'd have turned in too soon, the fire would have gone out, and he'd be exactly where he was now.

Deciding, as he always did when he realized this truth, that he aught to get a girl, Fado sighed. All he wanted was a nice, pretty, attentive thing that would always make breakfast an take a turn watching the fire at night. Mulling over some more concrete specifics, Fado whistled a tuneless ditty while doing a lot of bustling and making no progress. Blond hair, bright blue eyes, pert little nose, and good cook. That's all he asked for _his _girl to have. Someone nice, who'd like to snuggle, and-

Hunh..... Grate was stuck. Kicking it harder it gave with a scream, or maybe it was him screaming. The ashes from last night reared with a squeal and charged after him. Stiffening, blissfully oblivious to the _splatsplat_ or each egg bursting in his shock, Fado turned on his heel and ran. with a crash he hit the still closed door, the blow jarred his wits enough so that he took a second to open said door and barrel outside.

Squeaking and chittering, the terrier sized rat eared up on it's hind legs, whiskers twisting. Scenting something fresh and sweet it hunkered down, shaking ash from it's coat all the while. Sneezing once, than twice, it sniffed again to confirm the first whiff. Then, spying what it smelled, a few dribbles of egg, it helped itself of breakfast.

XXX

"First monkeys, than monsters, now rats..."

Clothes stripped and spotted with yellow Fado summed up the whole of Ordon's problems with his list, both arms making great sweeps as he went down each item. Those to either side of the excited adolescent ducked, wanting to avoid headaches, concussions, and the like.

"Mm hmm..." tugging his drooping silver mustaches Bo nodded, whether to the list, or the ducking went unsaid.

The menfolk were gathered about Ordon's sole water wheel. The omnipresent creek as it ponderously turned hid the bulk of their chatter from the town's nosy woman folk.

"Well, what are we going to do!" Fado bawled, and never mind the wheel, everyone in Kakariko heard that one, no doubt about it.

"Well, screaming isn't going to help." Bo grimaced, rubbing at his temples. He had a headach, something fierce.

"You've got any ideas?" Fado snapped.

"Not one." the mayor sighed, then casting a shockingly helpless gaze first left, then right, he said... no asked. "Does anyone have anything?"

Sitting on the ground, eyes riveted to the gate, Rusl stared moodily to the world beyond. He'd said nothing to no one, not even when prompted. Once, only once when he'd first noticed the man's numb state, the Mayor had moved to shake him, to make sure he was alright. At that near touch the swordsman stirred. Flicking his eye up, he'd met Bo's black eyes with his blue, onlly that... To mere scrutiny Bo backed away, and Rusl had gone back to his listless vigil.

"Could you... I dunno... contact them Goron folks?" Someone asked from the back.

To that the Mayor shook his head, didn't bother to speak for that question, it wasn't the first he had heard it and he didn't want to have to go through the various "why nots" al over again.

"After Link left." Voice dry and worn Rusl winced for speaking, rubbed his throat as if it ached. "Have we heard anything from him?"

"No." Bo grunted. Another worry amongst a mess of them. One that no one else had thought to bring up.

"From anyone else outside Ordon?" the swordsman pressed.

"No words, not from a soul." the Mayor affirmed, staring at the battered man with a melding of curiosity and concern.

"Somehow Link got through." The swordsman noted. "Else we would have seen him when we searched."

"Alright then, where's link now?" Fado snapped, made quarrelsome by the string of recent scares.

tired and worn, Rusl closed his eye, not having the strength to spare f irritation. "He's gone."

Where though?" Fado pressed, voice quaking.

"I-"

"That's enough." Bo growled, and to that all fell silent. "More than enough."

XXX

The pretext was simple enough, an offer of strength given, in the face of his need he accepted. The slow pace was set to avoid aggravating healing wounds. Such _needs_ and_considerations_ allowed them to talk.

"Link went after the children, he knows nothing of these new developments."

Bo hummed and hawed, but said nothing.

"We need help, outside help. Castle Town needs to know, the princess is fair, listens to the voice of her people..."

A nod then, spying a rather large rock the Mayor pushed it out o the way, obstacle avoided they shuffled one. The elderly upholding the weak.

"Well?" Rusl challenged with tone alone, having no strength to turn and meet Bo's eyes.

"I've considered, we'll send Fado. he's young, quick, and he'll get there fast and come back faster."

"Fado's a good boy Bo but..."

And unsaid, but no unremembered were all the fear filled protests the lad had tossed up earlier. They hung in the air, unspoken, yet there. To that mute, mutual, understanding Bo snorted.

"he's young, feckless, and immature." the mayor admired, finishing the swordsman's sentiment with a grimace. "And if I could, I'd go myself. I'm too old my friend. too old for adventures."

They walked on, the stream broke up their reflection with ripples as it skimmed over a slew of glossy stones.

"You're not that old, Bo." Rusl smiled, though the mayor couldn't see it. "You never get too old to do what's right."

"The bones ache, a nigh on the cold ground and I'd be a cripple come morning." The Mayor assured with a wry laugh. "It happens to the best of us if we're lucky. At least that's what they say."

"I'll go." Rusl offered quietly, without boast or preamble. "Let me."

_No_ bo shook his head the word hung between them unsaid. "Can you walk, Rusl? unaided? How many miles can you manage? All the empty leagues between here and Castle town than back again?"

"I can walk." Rusl countered, and the protest seemed mad indeed when considering how heavily he leaned against the Mayor just them. "And if it's more miles than my legs are ready for I'll crawl instead."

The door opened, framed by the parted wood Uli waited.

"You have too much to lose." Bo rebuked, his voice a shaking whisper. "Stay home, stay safe. Keep her safe, it's all you can do."

Recalling the Keese, the bloodsucking bats that were fluttering about the rafters of his home, discovered this morning along with the rats in Fado and Bo's homes, Rusl stiffened, but said nothing. In truth logically, there was nothing he could say. Nothing logical, anyways. Nothing that seemed sane. So, he held his silence, for now.


	8. Rusl: When Courage fails

Four by Four

Rusl: Nature of Courage

Edict of Courage

_"When we seek courage, we discover it's nature. Capricious and cruel, it only comes when whim and need coincide. The greatest tragedy of all however, that which fills graves and spins the crux of horror tales, is when you seek courage and find it... wanting."_

_Written on a __tombstone__ in __Kakariko__ Village_

Blue eyes wide, watering, Colin pounded up the steps. one tug and the door opened, and once in he forgot to pull it closed. Inside he ran, to her, and once found he held his mother tight...

And cried.

Cowardly Colin, mother's boy, tattle-teller. such were the names he'd been called by his friends. Fellow boys, who were growing up half observed under that old homely of "Boys will be boys". When Collin had reveled their children's most recent plot, to go as far and as deep into Faron Woods as possible, no adults allowed, this was a kids adventure, they'd turned. As sure and quick as Wolfos', the hackles had risen and the lines were drawn.

So, when on the day of the "adventure" Colin had com with his father in tow, they'd known he'd told. Grimly, gathering up the children, Rusl had walked each and every one of them to their surprised parents. an explanation, and quick showing as to what's he'd found in the children's "packs" -purloined food, and canteens, and other odd and ends that had gone "missing" the day before- garneted instant groundings on all fronts. As each miscreant had been dragged inside for further punishment, they'd hissed those words, those hated names, and at each one he'd winced. At the last house, as Bo descended on his Ilia with hurt and disappointed eyes Collin's eyes had started to burn. And father, who sometimes noticed things and said nothing at all broke his customary silence.

"Colin, why don't you go home, I'll be along in a bit."

Grateful, he'd bolted.

So, home again, home again, so went the songs, so he went. The details form _there_ to _here _were little more than a snuffle highlighted blur. Hiding his face from the world, crushing it and his tears against the front of Mother's shirt, he cried.

And in the silences of his soul, knew that he proved _them_ all right.

She didn't shush him, like all the other Mother's would. Didn't tell him to "Stow away his tears for another day" as would his elders. Rather, she set her sewing down, quiet but firmly, and rocked him until the tears had died. Humming bits of lullabies, snatches he half remembered, the burning eased and his tears dried. His face felt worn and mucky, he grimaced at the familiar feeling even as she reached into her dress pocket to retrieve a hanky. Arm still slung about him, she held him close and he leaned against her, feeling better somehow. Her scent filled his nostrils, even as her hands teased his hair. They sat that way for a long long time, neither saying a word.

"Do you know why those boys call you such things?" Mother whispered, hand not slowing a stroke.

To that familiar question Colin shook his head, even though his throat tightened with the unspoken "because they're right." He coughed, to shake out the tears, to stop the burning behind his lids. Unwitting he braced himself expecting and anticipating the "You think about it," then a pat on the head followed by the familiar dismissal of "then we'll talk about it later." And for his expectation he was rewarded with something so new it stole his wits for a while.

"They call you such things because they don't know what real courage is."

He started at that, blue eyes wide, he stared at her with protests and betrayal crowding his lips. you didn't say things like that about _friends_. You never even _thought_ bad stuff like that because it was wrong. But... under those protest something small, and angry, nodded. Knowing yet not-knowing if she was right, he opened his mouth, and the protests spilled out.

"What about Beth? She stayed out all night! Or Malo? When he thought there were monsters under the bed he didn't wait till he was eleven to check under the bed... Or how about..."

To that Mother set a finger to his lips, stilled his protests with that touch.

"Dares aren't courage, my little love.

And, because she said that, he remembered. Talo egging Beth on to stay out the whole night. Most of the 'brave' things his friends had done had been on dares.

"What about... about.." His voice hitched, and he blinked back burning. "About Malo, and the m... monsters?"

Quiet for a while, Mother considered that long and hard. At last... hesitantly at first then more firmly as she went along... "Malo seems intent on leaving all the wonder of the world far behind." To his confusion, she elaborated. "Monsters, like those under the bed, have a bit of magic. Oh, it's a bad kind of magic, something of nightmares and awe, but it is a sort of wonder."

To his perplexity she chuckled, and ruffled his hair, and for a while said nothing at all. Then, holding him gently, but tight...

"Let me tell you a story, an old one, about your father and me."

And to his expected nod, she smiled, just a bit wider.

"Once, before you were bon, when your father and I weren't much older than you are now, we met. It was before we were married, of course, it was cold. The coldest longest winter that Orodon had ever seen. the river that winds through town was frozen solid, and no one could fish, and none of the goats could drink because the wells and pumps had frozen too.

"So we melted snow, for drink and cleaning until the snow was all but gone. I was a dry cold winter you see. then, fed up with thirst and cold, your father went to the bank of the river and made himself a roaring fire. In that fire he warmed bent and broken horse shoes, and when they were red hot he threw them onto the river. One after another, all around the same spot. When the steam stopped he took the biggest rock he could and hit that spot hard. So hard it cracked and broke under him.

And when they fished him out and took their fill of water I was mad, so mad I shook. And I said:

"'What were you thinking, Rusl? Almost drowning yourself like that!'

"I didn't think it would snow tomorrow." Was all he said.

As if that was that.

"After that I got no peace.

"'If someone needed this plant, or that kind of rock, if a larder was low, or someone was sick, he was there. Going Farore knows how deep into Faron wood to fetch this or that. He'd take any job for someone ill. There was some talk about him being Mayor, rather than Bo, but that's another story.'

And though it was another story, pride warmed Mother's voice. An old pleasure well loved, till it shone about her eyes.

"'I followed him around, a bit of a nag truth be told. Bo I did help, even if I nattered. then, one day, he was just gone. no word or note, just up and gone. the whole town tore Faron apart and put it back together looking for him. And, a few days later, he came back all on his own.'

She laughed, a slightly bitter sound, and shook her head.

Bo let him have it, mayor less than a week and Rusl pulled something like that? Bo yelled the stars down once he was sure Rusl was well, of course.

"'Why were you gone?"

"'Something I had to get."

Another laugh, less bitter than the first. She held him close and he looked up and listened, enthralled.

"'I wasn't much nicer. I asked all the questions he'd heard before. All those 'why questions' that he'd always avoided and hated like nothing else. And like all the times before when asked 'why' he said the same thing.

"I had too."

Unlike all the times before I didn't accept that.

"Did you think about how worried everyone would get? What happened if you got hurt, got sick, or something else?"

To that he paused then said something I'll never forget.

"Of course.""

XXX

the first time you try anything you're going to make mistakes. I did, nearly died.

Pale, shaking, Rusl drew his bow from the sling over his back. A half turn to check his arrow count, then h was sprinting and nocking his bow all at once. Though unsure of his aim, not daring a second to affirm if his arrow would hit true, he released. Wood shattered as it hit steel, the horse sized swine snorted even as the horned _thing _upon it's back sawed at the reins. Though the walls of the valley weren't tight, sparks spat up as the boars steel sheathed tusks scarred the walls as it twisted about.

Face swollen and puckered, a sickly putrid green. Burning beady eyes peered out from the steel cap that served the swine riding demon as a helm. He met that gaze and grunt with a snarll all his own. He'd seen the limp bundle slung behind the bores saddle, and for seeing he'd seek.

To his last breath if need be.

"Put my son down, now."

Both beasts grunted, and to that he pulled the string taunt and another arrow was in place without a thought. And without thought he released, sighed and shot, and this time no mere steel got in his way. Screaming and squealing, and short one eye, the pig charged.

Tossing dirt and gravel up in cloven shaped detonations, beast baring devil bore down. Tossing its curled tusks let and right, never setting them and charging as was proper. The monster, in its mad rage, prevented him a prayer of dodging. Dropping his bow, drawing his blade, Rusl met madness of madness.

he charged.

"Give me back my son!"

In that last sane instance he leapt.

XXX

"Courage isn't not knowing the risks before acting, that's rashness. Courage isn't those wild actions we take when angry, that's fury. It's not accepting a dare, or following one through to the end. Courage is knowing the risks and danger while acting, and doing so anyway. It's knowing that you're scared, but knowing that you have to anyways. True courage, is desperate, born of desperation, it comes when we need it, not when we want it too."

XXX

nightmare made real by the pain, he held on tight all but melded with the swine's saddle belts. The other having lost it's sword in that mad leaping slash was clenched over the hilt of a skinning knife. clenched and stabbed, and slashed. he struck even as he held on for something more precious than life.

With a squeal the swine swerved, scraping him against the wall, trying to peal him off. Burning eyes bugged out, as the demon atop it's mount realized that there was no control. In that, man and devil were united, it was all they could both do to hold on.

Gritting his teeth, Rusl blinked back black blood and wouldn't let go.

Underneath him, wooden planks blurred into a slash of color, a hollow clatter of paws scrapping over the bridge, then at the trails conclusion, lingering between nausea and vertigo, he hesitated. The beast atop the boar did not. With a screech all it's own the monster drew a black bent blade. To that threat his grip slackened, enough so that the leather belt slipped out of his grip and the ground rushed up to meet him.

Even as the demon's sword screamed down.

XXXX

"Sometimes, just sometimes, courage failed the brave. In the face of nightmares unending in slumber, when waking was a torture, (and it's attendant silence, was always a symbol of his failure) and dreaming an agony… Under such a burden even heros could break. Leaving a folded note on the chair he'd stood, despite the burning of wounds half healed, stood and walked, and with walking he left. One by one, in little stages so he wouldn't reopen fresh scars, he'd taken each step. Away from home, following tracks that only exited in memory now.

It had rained last night, a harsh bitter rain, and though it was spring there'd been a breath of winter's chill to that sudden downpour.

Heading almost due north he saw new tracks. fresh and small and cloven. Monster's tracks, his intuition told him, and though there were signs aplenty not one beast attacked or showed it's snouted face.

And had he had his bow, he would have regretted that. But the splintered remains of his bow had been burned long ago. So he pressed on the familiar path, and at the Northern roads pre-mature end his legs failed him. Looking up, numb and drained, he stared long and hard at the boulders packed into the valley. By landslide that sole route that had connected Provence to Provence was broke. For learning he and swore and shook… and at long last broke.

Then, and only when the fit had passed in full, did he stand. Or rather, he tried. Failing, falling, he grunted, and then made true to his word. Unable to walk, he snarled, then struggled on at a crawl.

Thus, unwitting and free from intent, did Rusl follow the Goddess given edict of courage.

"First by word, than by deed."


	9. The Gathering: Of Heros

Four by four

Chapter 1

Of Heros

_To my readers,_

_ I re wrote this scene eight times, unable to be happy with what was coming out. Most of the previous interpretations were too… romantic. Since this wasn't what was needed for the course of the story I wound up shelving this tale and working on others. Recently I came back, rewrote the scene –it came out almost perfect this time- and hence the update. I also had some style notes that needed to be addressed, after consulting my notes I fixed that as well. Enjoy._

_Kasan Soulblade_

_"…hope is a stranger wondering how it got so bad_." song quote, from Love Song Requiet, by Trading yesterday.

The second she'd seen him, her composure fled. All at once, not in stages like all the stories said it went. One moment she was relaxed, half reclining behind the counter, the next a thing so full of tension she was hardly herself. Eyes wide nearly popping she passed here to there in seconds. Surprise faded even as she strode around the bar, felled by compassion as she ushered him to the table closest to the fireplace. Resolutely never minding his vile smell and obviously disheved state, she guided him as if her were royalty. Once sure he was seated and going to say that way she went to the bar.

A short span later after doing arcane things with spigots and barrels propped against the wall, Telma returned. Standing before him, foaming mud in hand, she set the drink before him and settled herself in the chair across from him. Numb, he accepted the offering, but did not so much as take a sip. He was lost in a kind of wonder that was something of joy, mostly of relief.

And wholly of breaking.

_She's alright… she's alright and-_

Shad." She shook him, just a bit to assure herself that he was alright. To her touch he jerked aware, like a man coming out of a waking nightmare.

"You're alright." He breathed the words, voice horse and worn and utterly without inflection. Telma couldn't tell if he asked or was simply sure.

Taking his hand, ignoring the glossy gloved and the vile smelling muck that crusted around the gloss she gave his fingers a quick squeeze.

"I'm fine Shad, perfectly alright."

Shaking and trembling, the hand she didn't hold closed over her own. In a motion strangely prayerful he held her hands within his own. For a long long moment he met her gaze, held it, then with a choked sob set his head against the grain and cried.

She held his hands, and listened to his sobs for Nayru only knew how long. Only once were they interrupted. Some patron made impatient by lack of service shambled to their table. Telma looked up, green eyes glinting, and whatever surly, slurred, complaint that was on the tip of his tongue went unsaid.

"Bars closed." Telma snapped up at the off duty soldier, then raising her voice so they all could hear she repeated herself, adding on a curt. "Get out."

With a grunt the steel clad man turned away and shuffled off, the remainder of the clientele following after him.

XXX

Hide slick, angles and edges glistening with dull rainbows, the thing's empty eyes were ever looking up even as it's fangs were eternally twisted in that bestial smile. She stared, shocked at the little monster presence and even more surprised with the ease Shad handled it. Rattling off characteristics in tidy lists, he trotted out tidy descriptors even as he turned the small dead monster over in his gloved hands. Perhaps, sensing her surprise he dredged up a smile part bitter, wholly sincere, all that curled from under the peak of blood shot eyes.

"I'm burning these gloved the second after I burn _this_."

"What is it?" Telma dared to ask, helping herself to the tankard Shad had barely touched.

"_Dead_," He breathed the word as if it was the only truth that mattered. "Thank the Three."

Looking down, considering the old hide and dark born rainbows, and that death locked smile, Shad set his hand firmly on the beast's torso and flipped it over.

Perhaps he wasn't quite as composed as Telma had thought.

"But… you don't know what it is?" Telma pressed.

"Gods no."

The mix of heartfelt piety and lack of control in his voice shook her. It shook her deep and set the wisdom that others saw in her shrouded green eyes to quaking. Holding herself sure and tight, she took a weary step back, and to that he turned. Looking up and staring up at her with his glass screened eyes.

"It's not like the tales, is it?" Telma murmured, looking down, not wanting to see…

"No." His lips quirked, bitter and sick his smile was -like always- and she knew that by his tone alone the slant that his smile was taking. She was capable of seeing despite not looking. "It's not like the tales. Our tales aren't full of horrible wonders like this."

"Just horrors." Telma confirmed, glancing up. "Horrors and wonders."

"Our ancestors were shortsighted I guess." Shad agreed, then, reaching forward he picked up the little atrocity. Cradling the rodent, he tiled it up, the glossy gloved rimmed with that oil born rainbow, shading his finger tips in surreal hues. Staring down at the creature that forever smiled up, he lost his own grin. Grin became grim, a thin slash of a line that stole the expression from his face, making a mask of flesh and blood snapped over the bone of his skull. Bespeckled eyes slid over where angles should have been a on a rodent. Instead of lines they traced swells and boils cast in a monochrome of macabre. Even the face was a mess, a snout jutted out of spindly, fluid legs made sick little sticks due to rigorous mortis. Tracing one of those sticks with a firm finger, Shad sighed.

"Gods help us all." Shad breathed. Mixing piety with horror and shaking as the potent mix hit home.

He never heard her stand, didn't' see it. He jolted in shock as Telma reached, set one hand on his shoulder and pulled him to her side. With a shake that sent the dead creature to the ground, he turned to stare at her. Eyes wide, despite the glasses she could see how wide his eyes truly were.

"Sometimes, dearest Shad, we are left by our Gods and made to stand trials on our own."

And to her truth, he sighed. Cataloging legends to tales, dividing with cynical sight born with a long acquaintance with history. His tally, once all the facts and figures came out clean, matched her own. And to that he sighed, bitter and sure.

"That only happens to heroes, Telma. Heroes take trials without the gods. Heroes defy the gods and take their treasures from the maws of monsters and somehow save the day."

Thinking back, she held him a little tighter, and smiled despite the grim. With a shaken sound he leaned into her warmth, taking what comfort she could offer.

"Not all heroes hold swords, Shad. Not all save the day. That happens too, you know."

He laughed, a bitter broken sound.

"You've a hell of a way of cheering a man up, my dear." Shad whispered, and despite his reserve and views on being a gentleman he swore as well as anyone else.

And he held himself against her, refusing to let go for a great while.

Holding him just as tight, Telma hummed in her throat, recalling half heard melodies her own mother had sung to her once upon a time agone. Recalling, she hummed the old songs, rocking back and forth as she half sung. Holding her tight, but loosening as the time whiled by, Shad said nothing, did nothing, for the longest time.

At last, they broke apart. He slipping his hands free, she letting him go.

Staring into his blood shoot eyes, Telma didn't smile, didn't frown, looked at him with a tell nothing expression that weighed everything and reveled nothing.

"When our gods leave us, what do we have left?" The barkeep demanded.

To that he considered, recalled the flight in the smelly dark… Than, insane as could be, he recalled a time less desperate, but just as telling. Telling, and utterly irrelevant as were all moments. On hand and knees, baring scrapes from shingles and jutting nails, he'd quietly labored. Fixing gutters that those "above him" had considered "irrelevant" but whose back up was causing stagnant water to pour into the food stores of a shed that opened it's doors to the needs and desperate. It hadn't been easy work, nor safe, one fall and he'd have broken his legs past repair. Still, he'd labored, and worked, never known, never thanked, merely… needed. His service had been needed, its scope painfully explained and he experienced that pain about the edges.

He hadn't taken pay, not when he'd seen those who had needed couldn't afford his taking. So he'd smiled and said nothing, walking away at his work's completion, never saying a word, never telling his name.

"Nothing." Shad met her gaze, and shrugged. "Save each other."

To her silence and continued tell nothing expression he grunted, looking away and down.

"They won't believe, even if we parade this thing in daylight, the guards won't believe a thing. They didn't believe, despite the creator of this creature nipping on my heels."

"Do you?"

"I can't not." Shad reached up, pushed his glasses up a bit. "Not when…" He swallowed, and sensing her curiosity he smiled and looked up without meeting her gaze. "Not after what _it_ said."

"And, what did it say?" Telma pressed, when he resolutely looked away she poked him, expression slowly reclaiming her face and lighting her frighteningly distant eyes. "Shad," another poke, than "what did it say?"

"That you were dead." Shad murmured. "And that Wolfos' drink the blood of fools harboring the dreams of heroes." He shuddered, suddenly cold. "And… that blood, it's sweet, sweeter than sweet."

It hung between them, and Shad's shiver took her, but just for a moment.

"I'm here, safe and sound." She assured him firmly. "It lied."

"It's not like you can just say 'I'll go save the world now!' and go do it!" Shad snapped, turning away from Telma, not wanting to see her scorn. "We… we don't even know if this… this thing isn't some monster contained to the sewers. If it is then… then it becomes the problem of the crown. The crown can send guards down and…"

"Men who won't see a thing." Telma murmured her voice soft and an ironic juxtaposition to the content of her rebuke. "Will you condemn the blind to death?"

"No! I… I just…" Hunching into himself, feeling pathetic and miserable and cold, Shad shivered. "We aren't heroes, Telma. I'm not a hero. Heroes have the blessing of Courage and Power and gain Wisdom in times of need. That's how all the good tales go, all the ones that end right."

Unsaid, bitter, unspoken, hung… _All those stupid, cliché tales, that end "and they lived happily ever after"._

"I'm not a hero." Shad breathed.

"So weren't all those other people, in those tales, the ones you hate so much for being "unrealistic". None of them were heroes Shad, just ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances."

"We aren't heroes!" Shad snapped. "You're a barkeep, and I'm a… a scholar. That's all we are."

"It's not all we can be." Telma countered. "It's not all we are. Those are names, titles, jobs. We can be as much or as less as we want to be in leisure, but sometimes, Shad… Sometimes those "impossible" "extraordinary" things find us, they find us and they take us and we can't do a thing but what we think is best."

Quiet, silence, looking to him, only to him as sure and stubborn as the north needle to it's chosen direction, she waited. He took one breath, another, than straightened his bowed shoulders.

"I'm going to go outside, clean up a bit at the pump." Shad said at last. "I'll… be back." And though she took that as good enough, he added. "I promise."

And then, he was gone, slipping past her and to the door and the waiting pump outside. Alone, for once, at long last, Telma made her careful way to the counter and sat quick and sure. Folding her arms before her, eyes burning something sharp, she lowered her head and hovered between that awful grey between crying and not.

"This shouldn't have happened, not in our time." She choked, crossing the grey at last, landing both feet firmly in the land of "crying". "Not in my time."

Confession complete to an empty, darkening room, Telma sighed and smiled and cried all at once.

"I bet they all said that, every single one of them."

Only silence was her answer, what she took from it would be her own.

As always.

XXX

Forgoing cleaning his garments, he stripped off scarves and gloves, squirmed out of glossy boots and saturated socks. Gathering up the soiled garments, he shoved them in some forgotten corner a ways away from the water pump and went back to the important matter of getting clean. Dressed in only a light, long sleeve jerkin and a pair of knee low britches Shad worked the water pump furiously. Black slime came off in sheets at first, then in driblets, then in sullen dribbles. Knowing he was far from clean he continued to work, shaking from the cold waters and dark night.

Luckily for him there was no wind, the buildings and narrow nature of the alleyway leading down to Telma's muffled wind and sound, and that was a blessing. A blessing he at first thought, a soft groan from the alleys mouth, from that black rectangular span that lead out, made him stiffen thoughts of blessing blowing away at his surprise.

Gritting his teeth, thoughts of rats with devil smiles flashing through his mind, shad stood, shivering but tall. With a shaking hand he pushed his glasses in place and glared half blind into the dark before him.

"Who's there?"

Silence, then a moan answered the svelte man's demand. Clenching his twitch hands into serviceable fists, Shad turned his head to the tavern and it's partially open door.

"Telma, something's going on. I'll be back."

Not sure she'd heard, only hoping she had, Shad turned back to facing the dark.

This time, refusing to run, he went towards the length of black. His hands shook despite being fisted, and he shivered from chills not wholly born of the cold.


	10. Cathering: A fear for the sun

Four by Four

Chapter 2

Fear for the Sun

_A hello to those who are reading,_

_Well, the computer I'm using (or system of them) was updated to remedy some technical issues. I'm not in anyway shape of forum used to these keyboards (flat evil planes where you can't tell where one button starts and another ends) as it is I'm having a few problems adjusting so this update took a little longer than normal. I accidently deleated this chapter (and had to rewrite it per memory) twice. A little exasperated, but here's your newest chapter. Enjoy._

_Kasan Soulblade_

_And, now what?_

He felt that statement, gathering on the tip of his tongue. Dipped in scathing tones its brittle state hidden by a façade prone to witticism, it hung behind his lips, patiently unsaid and screaming due being unspoken. Even as Telma applied bandages and red chu-chu gels to the still, battered, and bloody frame of the man Shad had dragged out of the darkness.

It hung, unsaid and setting him to shaking.

_Now what?_

We who aren't heroes, confronted by a situation that needs mending, a man that clearly needs mending, what can we do?

Well, save the obvious. Running to fetch the doctor. That had been done, right off. Medicines paid for and applied, that had been done too. All were offshoots of natural things, like compassion and caring, and they had been followed through to their conclusions and because of that at least the poor man wasn't going to be pushing up daises and the like.

Still, it was a poor comfort, considering what this man's coming meant.

"I guess Hyrule field isn't as safe as Castle Town these days."

It was snarky, and just a bit mean, alright, a great deal mean and unclothe besides. Still, he said it, and in his sleep deprived born cruelty with muscles aching from unexpected runs and mind racing from unexpected terrors he wasn't going to _unsay_ it for all the Ruppees in the castle's treasury. Despite his resolve he cringed. Expecting Telma to lash out, to tell him to bite his tongue and be a man about things or some other altruistic driven comment that would have been justified and right.

Instead, she sighed, only that.

Then, almost cliché, it came.

"I don't think any part of Hyrule is safe these days."

Looking down at the man clad in forrest greend and earthy browns, Shad grimaced.

"I can't argue with you there."

XXX

He watched, a detached spectator as Telma nursed her guest with impunity. Feeding the wounded man broth and other less wholesome looking things that were "for his own good". A little sickened -he'd never heard chu-chus scream like that as they were slitted and stirred- he watched till weary of watching. Then, without consent of his brain, his feet descided that enogh was enough. The doctor had been here, and Telma clearly didn't need him, she was doing her work find by herself. So, without consenting his wits, his feet took a few steps back, then without a word escorted him out the tavern.

Telma never even noticed, never even looked up, not once.

Telling himself he was _not_ hurt, Shad carried on, or rather his feet went on thier way and the rest of him tagged along.

Closing the door behind him, quiet so not to disturb the woman in her nursing, Shad slipped out from under the familar entrance way of the tavern and into the even more familar gloom of the alley leading out. Startled, he stopped, stopped and stared.

The dark that had once upon a time agone been a thin skin of shad had changed. Darkening and twisting, it clung onto walls and obscured the paving stones that were more familiar to him than the faces of friends and family. The stairway leading up to the market proper was gone, a black blurr that did not exist save in his memory. Shuddering, for this new stuff was daunting, a hundred thousand times more daunting than the mere night that had existed a day agone he steeled himself and stepped right along.

It clung, there was no other word. Letting him in grudginly it didn't part at him coming, rather it snapped up the illuminatioin that danced on the edges of his glasses amd other ghosts of light like a miser would ruppes. He shuddered, trying not to feel it's heavy, slick, texture as it pressed all around. It was like a mad man, not content with stuffing such dark between the stars, had gathered up the dark and shook it out on the earth. Such thoughts bright forth fanciful images, like a man of shade shaking out a stubborn quill pen and with soundless splats setting this cloying gloom about them. Shaking his head, Shad smiled a lean sick smirk and more by touch than memory made his shuffling way up.

Up and out, away and gone, to the Three knew where.

And it seemed the Three didn't even no where, for he founding himself no where, no where at all that mattered.

Leaning against one pole, it's torch flickuring and flaring on the windless night, Shad stared up at the flame and let his glasses be washed in illumination that was was one moment red tinted, the other second it bared a flush of gold. Thinking of nothing at all, he dwelled on the quiet with proper seriousness.

As last, mad maddening decision made, he picked his destination and went on his way.

XXX

"You want to... what?!"

Leaning against the stone building, it's sign proclaiming it to be open "Twenty-Four Sev'n" Shad glared down at the squat man behind the counter. Ironically, the man was named Sevn, hence the pun and the sign. Had the sign been deliberatly been marked as "Sev'n" he'd had scoffled, called it a cheap marketing ploy. As such, considering the grafetee of deliquents had caused the whole street around them it was unlikely that Sven had caused the "Sev'n" to be.

Thus the irony, or rather the surge of humor that was so bitter and dry it tasted metalic and passed as such in his mind.

"I want to withdraw every Rupee stored in my name." Shad reiterated, heaving a tired sigh. This was the fifth time he'd repated himself after all. "Down to the last green gem."

"Repeat that again, son, I'm heard of hearing." Old man Sevn pressed, wanting to be assured that the scholar had been speaking true.

Temper up -a glance at the sky would have told any why his humor was bad and sour as Telma's greenest ale- Shad snorted.

"I'll pen it on your head and gift you a mirror old man, just pull it all out. What kind of bank is this, you holding our money and not giving it out?"

"A honest one." Blue pebbly eyes thin and sure, the scrawny man spoke slowly, careful and quiet. "Son, you in trouble? In some sort of hurry to leave down?"

"No." Shad grunted, fighting to keep civil.

"And this is _honest_ buisness you're pulling?" The old man pressed. Smoothing his worn but well made red tunic just _so_ with long, arthritic, swollen fingers.

"Yes." The Scholar grated, teeth snapped shut so not to scream the profanities he truely, sincerly, wanted to indulge in.

"_All_ of it?" The old man asked again, marking this as the sixth time around.

"Yes!" Shad snarled. "Every last, bloody, Rupee! Now, right now!"

"No need to shout!" The old man squealed like a stuck pig, hands held in a half hearted defense Sevn gruimbled a weary. "I'm getting it, I'm getting it."

With a tired sigh the old man ducked behind the counter, pulled up a familar trap door, and slid down the ladder leading to wherever he stored his client's rupees. Hardly interested in what the old man was up too, Shad let out a bitter sigh. The sound held a ghost of his frusterations and did nothing to set his mind at ease.

As per his habbit -such a small thing that habbit that had descided him, how sickening that a single gesture had taken the whole decision right out of his hands- Shad looked up, considered the night sky.

Blackness stared down at him. Not a star in the whole of heaven, not a cloud striping above.

_We've lost the stars_. He mused, his thoughts hardly sounding like his own, though thier voice and his were both the same. _I fear for the sun_.

XXX

Heros wear green, they wear green hats and tunics and have swords and save the world. Daring the wraith of mad man turned Gods, by Power's whim, they storm towers and save princesses. They rush into burning buildings to save those trapped withing. Always at the apex -velocity and compassion it seems run hand in hand in the olden days- they storm and save and fight and win. Those were the stories he was used to. The tales he scoffed at, and though his father had a library of such tales he'd never touched a one.

Well, save to find notes about the Oocoo, but_ that_ was different.

Now, with legends and librarys filled with them, he read the tales his father once loved. Two books at a time, one on each end of his desk, the previously presued pages dangling precarriously about the edges. Eyes leaping from book to book till they burned, he feverishly skimmed through illuminations and text, song and praise, trying to unlock that missing link. That no mans land where tale met truth, he sought it and failed in finding.

These were the fairy tales of a childhood agone, and here, at a sceptic ridden age of twenty six he consueled them again. Trying to find that magical phraise, that string of sylables, that would block out this cloying night and banish the all too real monster out from under the bed and out of the sewers.

And out of his town.

_This is my land, my Hyrule, my Castle Town. I may not own it, but the roads I've walked are mine, the people I see are mine. My nieghbors, my friends, all mine. Mine and unsafe, mine and in danger... _

Such was the slant of his feverish thoughts that blocked him from reading... coherently.

Giving it up as lost, for now, Shad stood and streached and groaned, roughly in that order. He'd been at it for hours, rumaging through the attic he didn't own -rented, the sad truth. The whole of his home, all of the one room and one attic above that room was his by loan and merit of rent and landlord- through books that belonged to his father. Bringing them down a few at a time so not to strain his arms or risk a fall, he'd gathered his father's work. Bared the tatered, rat chewed, and mildewed collection to the candle light, he complained not, even as his closing of his latest efforts set dust and pungiant smells to flying. All about him, piled into blocky shapes, his father's work was squat in form, distinctly blockish, and a tad deteriated... It's shadows however, were stretched and ominous and utterly fresh and ripe to inspire nightmares. Wonderful. Such, Shad supposed in this idle moment, was how darkness worked under the new order of things.

Looking at that familiarly ominous patch of dark, Shad drumbed up a dry witcism, as always. Summing up his situation and that of the world's in a few short, -and since he was alone, why not indulge?- sarcastic, sylables. "Charming."

For a moment he thought he heard the squeak of mice. Seeing dead smiles in his memories eye, and bloated oily rodent corpses, Shad shivered. Then, checking a full blown shudder, he spared a glance at the time candle he'd set to light upon entering. A quick calculation told him the hour near to dawn. Mere moments 'till false dawn actually. Also, if his count was right a half a inch would burn until true dawn would be upon them. Heartened, he turned. Setting the leather bound books aside he turned to the window expectedly.

Thoughts came to him, distint, yet distinct, all cast in a voice that was his own_. I fear for the sun, it's golden light is a distant memory after tonight. I fear for it's life, it's heat, and life_ giving_. Can all that be lost? Will we lose it all?_

Clenching tight his hand, crumpling the one peice of paper tht made sense -and therefore was allowed to remain on his desk when the books that did not were excised to the floor- Shad waited. Glass shielded eyes strained against the dark, seeking the grey that preceeded dawn.

A long wait awaited him, it's time protracted by hope.


	11. Gathering: chp3

Four by four

The Gathering chapter3

One and one

He picked and paced, mulling over every option in his mind till his wits felt rattled in his skull. Immersed in dust and mildew, he perused his collection, making some choices with careful thought and others on untamed whim. Each book chosen, it in turn became cherished. Carefully wrapped and sealed in water proofed skins of delicate, deceased creatures, the wrappings where in turn sheathed in folded clothes. The whole of his first "pack" consisted of his labors, loose papers, and a charcoal stick or two. All other related things to the scholars craft were stuffed into pockets, pouches, and the like that were hooked on his workman's belt.

As for the belt, he slung that about his waist, it was a wide contraption, more longwise pack than anything else. Hardly stylish, he clipped it on without another thought save to marvel at the niggling vanity that had made him think of style, at a time like this... Digging through relics from romps long gone, he stuck a slew of wires, hooks, and gossamer threads in his pouches. Hardly remembering what they were for, only recalling he'd taken them with him a time agone ago and that they must be useful Shad stood, turned, and considered himself without use of a mirror. Hardly impressed -he looked like a page on an errand more than anything else- Shad sighed.

What else could be missing?

It came, and with it a recollection. Hot on memories heels he ripped his small abode further apart. Father had been fond of using a specific satchel, and Shad rarely threw anything out… By pulling out a couch stuck cat-corner he found it. Grayed by decades of dust, he took it out -holding it gingerly between two digits- and gave it a good shake.

His quest nearly ended there, in a case of accidental asphyxiation.

When his lungs had recovered he'd given the thing a quick clean. And, after a bit of thought, gave himself his second bath for the "night". _That_ finished he raided his own pantry. Procuring a loaf of stale bread and some wilted vegetables and a fourth of a wheel of cheddar, he'd tossed the lot in his quickly drying satchel. It seemed rather light, truth be told, but logic told him he'd just have to be satisfied with what he had. Recalling further, he plucked old water skins out of storage, and making a mental not to full them at the streets public pump, clipped them in place. As for their place, well there were hooks, see? Small metal barbs that poked out from the band of father's pack. Logical, father had been very much a man of thought, and though the contraptions was ugly as sin father had been willing to forgo personal vanity for mobility.

So, like father, like son, he lived the old adage. With only the barest of cringes when one hook, missed amongst the many, took a quick nip at his shoulder. Shifting the strap, and setting the pack to jangle while he worked, Shad sighed.

Relief, pleasure, whatever the sound meant it came and went.

Thus, loaded down, equipped with necessities like food, and nick knacks that he thought he needed and didn't quite know how to use, he spared himself another look. Yes, that was definitely a page look about him. A weary, satire, of an overworked lackey for some nobleman going out for a stroll… Biting his lips, least he laugh and loose all heart for this mess, -what a mess- Shad took two last things. Important things, nearly sacred. So much so that he'd carry them on his immediate person, ,muck like a knight would carry and cherish his sword and armor. First, a small compass, so small it hung from a chain and draped over his neck like a talisman from olden days. Once it was properly centered the scholar scooped up his last, most precious of items.

Dull and dust dimmed, Occo eyes peeking out from the slender well loved spine. He'd gotten it a long time ago, in a childhood long gone. Hugging the book for luck, Shad departed hearth and home. Tending the little details on the way out, and doing very little to blunt the mess besides.

Snuffing out the hearths fire _here_, extinguishing a sputtering candle _there_, centering a picture gone askew by the door. He looked back, and though ominous, the gloom obscured the worst of his foraging even from him. Confident matters were as well as could be expected Shad closed the door behind him, mournful eyes fixated in each and every detail… if not lovingly at least wistfully. With a soft click the door slipped shut, and Shad sighed at the familiar gain.

Motions of melancholy done, the scholar patted his pant pocket taking comfort in…

The key… that wasn't there. That should have been there. Resolution about being a gentleman all but lost Shad sighed again, this sound more exasperated than anything else.

"Damn it." The scholar groaned.

A quick pat to the other pocket confirmed his house key wasn't there either. Drumming up a half hearted glare, Shad considered his assortment of pouches, packs, and the like. Today, tonight, _whatever_ it was, was looking to be a bad…

Very bad indeed.

XXX

He was a parody of an adventure and he knew it. Not by the tolerant bemused slant to Telma's eyes, or even by some scathing internal measure. Rather, his state was shown in full by the _real_ adventurer he consulted. Cut in clothes of rough and rowdy slant, showing signs of wear, and stains from tough roads the man stared up at Shad. Incredulous, contemptuous, perhaps pitying the slightly younger man who'd decided _now_ was the time to play dress-up. The measure of that one eyed stare was left o the person being pinned by it. As it was, Shad, hardly feeling confident, had little trouble summoning the darkest of interpretations to everything at the time.

Deciding distinction and details where were devils lay, Shad plucked off his glasses. The world turned into a blur, where color and gloom mingled in a mire. Telma snoozed, had slept through him entering her tavern -and with luck would sleep away his leaving. Looking down, never seeing, Shad met -or rather tried too- that sole, green, eye. Not seeing didn't help his efforts in the slightest.

"So, you can't tell me what happened?"

Silence, this had been the man's first response, and seemed to be his last. Checking an irritated noise, trying _not_ to scowl, Shad stood. Unfamiliar packs and pouches clunked and clattered. Cringing at the racket, Shad guiltily turned to where Telma dozed. The brown, red blur that was all her details smeared around didn't stir. Taking heart from that stillness, Shad plucked his glasses from where he'd plunked them. Or rather, he would have. A snap of pressure and heat over his wrist stopped him cold.

"Where are you going?"

Blind as a Keese Shad smiled, never knowing why he did.

"Out, for a stroll."

"There… are monsters out there. Beasts sprung from legend."

As if legends were traps or cages, and monsters were things to be set free like macabre bait. With a delicate sniff, Shad wiggled his hand then his arm. For a man half dead, Telma's present patient certainly was lively.

"Please," ever civilized, Shad shook his hand to emphasize his point. "Let go."

"You don't understan-"

"I may not understand, sir, but I've seen plenty." Shad snapped, patience and tolerance worn raw and bloody by the whole of this sleepless span catching up in full.

Words, and tone, hung between them,. Unspoken, and tense, a whole dialogue that should have been said went unsaid. In stained silence the two stranges came to know that they shared something in common. But, having no means to articulate the experience, it hung like a mist. Licking his lips, the scholar stared down at the battered soul before him, keen slight blurring all the edges, losing all the details…

"There were monsters, in the sewers."

(forest)

The scholar enunciated this knowledge slowly, surely, like it was a well known truth by all. "Jibbering devils that make shade into real and scream… they scream…" Taking a deep breath, Shad let it out with a small shudder. "And no one sees them., Just me. And they gnaw at the foundations, chewing up the edges of hospitals, and Goddess knows what else till it all falls don."

Confession complete, Shad gave hi hand a sharp jerk. And those fingers let loose at long last.

"We've lost the sun, the stars are dulled all light s dim." Felling like the fool he knew he looked, the scholar set his glasses in place. Ignoring the throbbing pulse of pain in his wrist. "Goddess help us when they decide what to take next."

World in focus, shad met the gaze of the wounded man clad in greens and browns reminiscent of forests he'd never seen but had read about a long time ago.

Husky voice ragged from screams of battles long lost and silence held in shame for far too long, the man from beyond Castle Town whispered.

"They took the children."

"Then," Swallowing hard on something acidic and slick, Shad continued saying the right thing as he knew he must. "I'll take them back. If I find them."

"You're a knight?" Incredulous wasn't the right word, and Shad didn't bother to plumb his extensive vocabulary for the right one.

"No." Refusing to beat about the bush he cracked a slight smile. "Just an artificer and scholar, an independent."

Thus, as was norm for a Castle Town resident he proclaimed himself an abnormality. Owing no loyalty to guilds and the like, he worked for himself. And for one moment the loneliness of that reared up. He worked alone, lived alone, had been alone almost all his life…

Then, too cynical to be his own, the thought came. _Thus, no one will miss you when you die._

Shivering a little, Shad looked down at the wounded man, trying to smile brightly and failing.

"Are you a knight." The scholar dared ask.

"No." Dredging up a grin that was more pain than anything, the man in green smirked. "A hunter and citizen of Orodon Village."

Centering his glasses, Shad shifted a few requests (look after Telma for me… please) assurances (if I find _any _children I'll… I swear I'll) and the like, the possibilities tickled the tip of his tongue. Another swallow and it all went down into that comforting, comfortable place where all unspoken dialogue was jammed. The possibilities would clutter his brain, to be unsaid but milled over after dinner and keep him company thought the night. It was just his way of doing things.

"Shad Calique." Offering his hand and a bright smile that better suited better days, Shad waited.

"Rusl Farrin." The forester accepted the hand, then shifted his grip from familiar clasp to a little higher up. Closing calloused fingers, they bit down just bellow the elbow. With a grunt of "Help me up, will you." Rusl pulled and after a startled second Shad complied.

Sitting up, and looking a lot like he should be lying down, Rusl rubbed his side. Bandages swelled a span below his ribs, despite that the man moved to stand mere moments later.

"You're mad!" Shad squawked, finally figuring that Rusl was fully intent on coming along.

"You are too."

To that stark truth Shad did the only thing he could think of, he helped Rusl get all the way up.


	12. Gathering chp 4

Four by Four

The Gathering Part Four

Forsaken

_a/n: just a flash update, I'm trying to settle on a project and I found some notes for this one, thought I'd post them before I lost them again._

The town was forsaken; its residents pressed into darkness seeking the desperate's sanctuary of not being seen. Torches in hand, lit though they stood in the towns boundaries and had yet to brave the wilds beyond the walls, they wended down cobbles with their torches held high. Sometimes they'd catch a glimpse of life, of someone. A flicker of color ringed about by white before a shudder and cringe obscured it, a flash of cloth as its owner slipped away.

Bandaged face held high, Rustl kept pace through it all. As the cobbled roads stretched further along and the houses became scarcer. Though this first leg of their journey surely hurt, or so the grimace assured, the outsider looked in, and found the view far too familiar.

"It.. It looks like home… Tell me… all of Hyrule isn't like… isn't…"

Shad had no answers, no assurances, so he let a lonely breeze that passed them by offer all the words he couldn't. The sound was mournful, catching the edges as it wandered, the wind acquired something of a moan as it moved along.

Rustl shivered, having answer enough. Shad, hardly superstitious, simply pulled his bag and vest tighter and regulated the sound as just that, a sound. Noise. Insignificant...

Spying a sewer grate close by, he led his weary companion across the street, only pausing to check for horses that weren't out of habit.

"What…" Rustl grunted, no gasped.

"The… below…" Shad shivered, and the man he braced surely felt it. "It's not safe."

There were torches above, behind, about, they were stuck at the corners of each intersection. The edges of every building sported a lit light, as if in a pique of mad optimism someone had run all about making as much illumination as possible.

As if mere firelight could push this unnatural night back.

The efforts were doomed to failure, fire left no light, no appreciable light anyway. So, torch held high, sheading his own insignificant illumination against the dark that coiled in the edges and sprawled out to steel the edge off of the world, Shad enlisted himself amongst the ranks of the madly optimistic without even realizing it.

"Tell me…"

Another grate, Rustl looked too weary for another detour (even if it was just to nip across the street), so he steeled himself, and both stepped over the metal bars. As they passed something gleamed whitely up at them, a glimmer of red considered them then winked out. Shad, resolutely refusing to look down, missed it. Rustl, lips pressed into a thin line, hissing in absent agony missed the sight in the span of a grimace.

"Tell me, about the places beyond Castle Town." Shad bid. "Tell me, what I'm getting into."

Rustl shook his head, having no words, or perhaps no strength to speak the words.

There would be no horses, hardly white if they could have afforded them. There would be no hero's welcome, no farewell into sunset.

For the sun had abandoned them, as had so many many other things.

The guards cringed in the corners of their stations; their steely rustlings were all that differentiated them from the cowering citizenry. In this lightless night there was no color save gloom and grey and black. Save a flash of wide white, a drop of color amongst the unseeing span that was made to allow for sight.

The wind picked up, the moan from before nearly had words now…

Rustl leaned between the stone wall and a pillar that marked the edge of the public stables. He watched on, one eye weary, as Shad reached up and pulled back, causing the main gates between Castle Town and the world to creek open. When it was just wide enough to accommodate them both Shad took a breather. Actually, what he did was bend over double, wheezing, but he'd call it resting for a mite for dignity's sake.

Another sigh, there words this time, formed of angles and the like, there were words.

A whisper… A child's chant, save seeped in sacrilege of the darkest order. _It_ drifted through the cracks and crevices of the abandoned town that wasn't quite hollow yet but was slowly getting there.

_The gods are dead, did you hear, did you hear, the gods are dead…_

Forcing himself to stand, never mind the pain and the blood that surely flowed, Rustl looked to the wind that pulled at their backs. Born, from some unspeakable low, breathing its unspeakable lyrics, he turned towards it, face twisting in a vicious scowl.

"Shut up, damned thing! The Gods… they aren't'… they can't be…"

Setting his glasses in place, Shad considered the wind's rout, and shivered. Baring the frivolities of change… if the wind acted as unnaturally as anything else in this cursed night than… Than it was born of Hyrule's Castle.

It was, perhaps, the last breath of a dying monarch. Shad imagined fire in the throne room, nameless faceless and supposedly wise fleeing… falling… As hope died before him and protectors abandoned their peoples, their king, surly such bitterness could be a dying man's last words.

And king and land were ever bound, such was where kingdoms were born. Man to earth, blood and bone…

But _they_ weren't dead yet. Not him, not this would be hero from who knew where looking for his child.

Not Telma, waiting, so patently, for surely she knew they were gone, surely she'd "hold the fort" as it were, whilst waiting.

The wind and all its malevolence waited, lingered, coiled, and roiled, ever in place. To that moment, to the wind, and the things behind it, Shad spoke.

"Slay gods," he saw the sewers, his terrified flight and swallowed, voice once sure, now surely shaking. "We don't need them. Summon monsters," Rustl nodded, face firm, losing its angry edge, only determination remained. "We'll just slay them. We win, you lose, that's all that there is to it."

A snarl form up high, like thunder, save there was no light. No clouds. As unnatural from first to last, pressing his lips into a thin line, nevermind the shaking, Shad stood alone, yet not.

"We _aren't_ dead yet!"

His voice, though broken, though weary (nevermind the journey had not begun) was his weapon. As were his words. He tossed both to the once apathetic heavens and the evil, dark thing beyond the once blue skies silently roared.

"_We aren't dead yet_!"

He shook at such a bald declaration. It's allusions to the savage (such a strange thing to contemplate, his dying, his being killed, so unreal when you considered the bulk of his life was pages and drawing and little good deeds) made him tremble.

A grunt, part growl, and then there was warmth at his side, a hand over his shoulder.

"We aren't but he… it… is." To Shad's bewildered look the hunter from beyond Castle Town's walls smiled. The exhaustion that pooled in lines of his face seeped from the edges (some red, some clear bitter sweat) glimmered in that failing light. "Rot… the wind's… rotting, rotten, you never forget the smell." A nudge urged Shad forward as the wounded man staggered a bit, keeping pace behind. "Let's go, he's gone now, and it's time we're gone too."


End file.
